Michael Shermer: "How Classical Liberalism Can Heal The Bonds Of American Affection"

I'm on board with the general project, of course. People on both ends of the spectrum are starting to talk about splitting the Union...and even civil war. Not many; so perhaps it's worse to acknowledge it than to ignore it. Eventually a compromise will have to be reached. So better to do it before things get out of hand rather than after.
   I'm not sure pure compromise will work given the power of the PC / "social justice" left. If one side goes off the rails, that has to be fixed before merely splitting the difference is likely to help. If we see the alt-right as analogous to the ctrl-left, then it's possible without shenanigans to think in terms of knocking off the roughest edge of each side...though it seems clear to me, anyway, that the alt-right has nothing like the social/cultural power of the ctrl-left. (You can only point to Charlottesville so many times...) Seems to me that people are maybe starting to recognize that identity politics of the left are in principle no better than identity politics of the right. So it may be possible to gain some yardage by making that point very clear. In fact, I'd guess that, rhetorically, it's a winning point...though I hate thinking in rhetorical terms.
   Also, it might be better to try to attack this from a geekier direction, where we're less prone to invincible stupidity: gerrymandering may have helped to get us into this mess by exacerbating polarization. Or maybe not. But de-gerrymandering might at least help get us out of it.