Check out the editorial on electricity market reforms in Virginia in the Washington Post this weekend by Tom Cormons, executive director of Appalachian Voices, and Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks.
“If Americans’ appetite for taking on the status quo is a defining feature of our time, political polarization is another. We celebrate the first as essential to democracy and progress — having spurred reforms from the American Revolution to the civil rights movement — while the second pits us against each other and often paralyzes our system with gridlock. Paradoxically, today we see them rising together.
“A vigorous drive to stand up to our most powerful institutions animates progressives, conservatives and independents alike and cuts across the geographic, racial and cultural lines that often divide us. The political establishment has learned the hard way that this grass-roots discontent cannot be belittled or ignored.
“Polarization, however, can prevent people from seeking redress of their grievances in a powerful, united way. When Americans are too paralyzed by animosity to work together, the privileged special interests that are the biggest reason for our ire remain unscathed by reform.”