As Congress debates making changes to the Endangered Species Act, we're starting to believe one species in particular needs to be added to the list.
With Democratic Socialists and whatever the Tea Party has evolved into, it's becoming clear that political moderates may need protection. Maybe a few acres could be set aside in northern Missouri. We've heard that breeding pair counts in New Hampshire and Iowa flyways are down double-digit percentages.
The people who think that both parties can have good ideas now and then may be shrinking at an alarming rate, and that doesn't bode well for getting through this era of hyper-partisanship.
Left-leaning strategists looking to counter our current president think they've found the answer in moving . . . further left. Why does this song and dance seem so familiar? Could it be because Republicans have been experiencing the same thing over the last eight years, but in the other direction?
Like most other endangered species, moderates are decreasing in number because of loss of habitat. For the bobwhite quail it's destruction of native grasses. For moderates it's the death of civilized debate.
Gone, it seems, are the days of conservative Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans. Moderates may soon only be seen in zoos where parents walk past with their children and imagine a world in which this once great species roamed free in the wild.
Maybe they can make a comeback. Maybe with temporarily federal protection and breeding sanctuaries, moderates can be released back into the wild to reclaim lost territory in the coming decades. Unfortunately, that would take an Act of Congress, and political moderates just don't have a voice there any longer.
Editorial on 08/30/2018