<i>And the thing I’ve been struggling with throughout my political career is how do you close the gap. There’s all this goodness and decency and common sense on the ground, and somehow it gets translated into rigid, dogmatic, often mean-spirited politics.</i><p>Well, one way that happens is when political leaders don&#x27;t try to engage their opponents&#x27; best arguments, but instead set up straw men that are wonderfully fun to watch burn:<p><i>Whenever I hear people saying that our problems would be solved without government, I always want to tell them you need to go to some other countries where there really is no government, where the roads are never repaired, where nobody has facilitated electricity going everywhere even where it’s not economical, where... the postal system doesn’t work, or kids don’t have access to basic primary education. That’s the logical conclusion if, in fact, you think that government is the enemy.</i><p>The GOP (thankfully) isn&#x27;t composed of a bunch of anarchists, and framing your opposition as only made up of the idiots who run around saying &quot;Keep government out of my Medicare&quot; is not really a great way to persuade folks that, say, a $4.1T government is worth $300B more taxes and debt than a $3.8T government. Either could keep the roads paved and the mail delivered.