You don't have to meet half-way, just meet.
We can't afford to miss or avoid a partial consensus of thought through a reckless display of hubris.
Both political parties contain and employ thoughtful people who understand more than they dare speak.
It has always been difficult to work with new ideas, as they must initially run the gauntlet of established certainties.
Settled thinking is a fabric of tested reassurances. It is not open to even subtle shifts of thought. Since new ideas are always tentative and incomplete, they make little headway in societies where students and others are taught “truths.” (I.e. a particular form of economic practice as ideal for all time.)
Thus, it is important to note that there are “stirrings” among Republican insiders, as well as many battle- worn Democrats, to question their past support for some basic ideas about our economic framework.
They will continue to bang the drums and march in the parades that celebrate “Capitalism,” but at the same time recognize what an economy actually is: a far less than perfect construction of law and custom. When faced with economic outcomes that are far from ideal, and likely less than should be realistically expected, some of the faithful are forced to consider the “flaws” in the construction.
They will not be “visionaries.” For which we might be thankful. They are likely to consider different outcomes, in a world of many partially separable economic complexes, as useful comparisons. They may also distrust, as should we all, concentrations of wealth that hover over our democratic system like birds of prey circling in the sky.
Listen for. Encourage. Support signs of economic reform. We have precious little time to worry about the partisanship of the messengers. Consensus for change develops as a slow evolution of ideas. We find common ground and then discover further agreement. We work with, not against, those that are clearly alarmed by our present “drift.”
Once we understand, what we never really forgot, that institutions are made by human hands (passing laws and codes and legal interpretations), we are free to engage in real reform.