The Silence of the Centrists

For many Americans, the G.O.P. convention was the most disquieting spectacle since Buffalo Bill lowered a bottle of lotion into a well in "The Silence of the Lambs." This take from the political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann explains how we got here. (It also explains the inspiration for this site's tagline; the two parties are vastly asymmetric in their extremism, and false equivalence, often by "centrist" pundits, has only abetted the insanity.)