(I wrote the below about a month ago, but it didn't seem worth posting. Today's events reminded me of it.)
About 20 years ago, an acquaintance from Germany, who had spent some time in Berkeley in the 1980s, told me some of her observations about the United States.
Something would happen, the media would report it, and everyone would get excited about it. Opinions were extreme, on both sides. First, it pulled one way, with the loudest voices aggressively asserting an alarming view. Then it pulled the other way, with public opinion loudly proclaiming disturbingly extreme views on the other side. It felt like a pendulum swinging wildly from one extreme to the other. She found it frightening and destabilizing. She was uncomfortable with such agressive expressions of strong, extreme views.
My acquaintance continued her story. She was relieved to observe that eventually the pendulum always settled down to a quite reasonable position in the middle. Americans fought it out, expressing all possible views, and eventually came up with a sensible resolution. After she learned that, she was no longer afraid of the rather messy process used to get there.
It seems to me that sometime since then, the pendulum forgot how to settle down. It's as if someone inserted a battery. Now, it only swings wildly. I feel sorry for the poor pendulum, which surely needs a rest.
I hope we can recover our ability to find sensible solutions to difficult problems, even when we don't completely get our own way.