Pearlstein's WaPo column from 12/14 is a doozy, and one of the worst examples of Village-Think I've seen lately.
To establish how smart he is, Steve starts out by babbling about Nash Equilibria, and then informs us that that's we now have in Washington: a stalemate in which neither Republicans nor Democrats have any incentive to change their behavior, because they're all wallowing in cash. Whose fault is that? Would you believe a lot of it is yours? See, every time you write a check for your "association dues", or join a union, or contribute to an environmental organization, you're just making the problem worse by sprinkling your money on it.
It gets sillier...
Steve's proposed solution: we all take a vow to stop feeding the beast with our filthy contributions until the Republicans and Democrats join hands and sing Kumbaya and bring us...
Do you feel it coming? ... here it comes ... A GRAND BARGAIN!! Yes!
Let's leave aside the problem that (apologies to the NRA) if contributions are outlawed, only outlaws will contribute. Steve is giving us a whole new take on Both Sides Are Equally Guilty(TM)--namely that your few bucks in "association dues" are just as big of a problem as the Koch brothers' millions.
No matter--all we need to do is slash the safety net, get those lucky duckies at the bottom of the heap paying their share of taxes, and maybe put the tiniest little touch on the top 1% (not enough to discourage them from creating all those jobs, of course) and all will be peachy.
And the Village punditocracy can go back to rhapsodizing about all that bipartisanship that relieves them of the annoying task of identifying the real culprits in Washington.
I'm so sick of this shit I could cry.