Taking Sides

From my Harvard classmate Josh Patashnik over at The New Republic:

The fervor this campaign has unleased is a grim reminder of how far removed this textbook conception of the political process often is from reality. Politics can easily end up being tribal, not rational; there's a natural urge to pick a side and defend it, regardless of the ideological stakes involved. The longer the fight goes on and the closer the race appears, the deeper the divide becomes--it takes on a life of its own and before you know it you have irate activists traveling thousands of miles to Washington in passionate opposition to the fair and legitimate nomination of a candidate whose views they agree with. In short, the problem is not that demography determined the outcome of the Democratic race--it's that people (journalists included!) became so emotionally invested in such a superficial contest.