Worse than political discord

It’s easy to lament the state of political dialogue in the US. The infighting, the vitriol, the talking over and past each other, the lack of genuine attempts to understand and make progress.

These are issues, says longtime conservative Washington Post columnist George Will. He doesn’t care for the “vinegary” tone of political debate in America either. But it’s not what he fears most.

“I’m much more alarmed by the consensus than the discord,” Will told The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim referring to the unprecedented federal deficit spending explicitly or implicitly supported by both major political parties. Politicians on both sides of the aisle “subscribe to the permanent powerful incentive to run deficits - peacetime, full-employment, large deficits. Because…they won’t be here when the crash comes.”

What’s worse than political discord? Political consensus unchecked by intellectual honesty or any realistic view of what is ultimately sustainable.