I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

We need to punch back against the extremes of both the left and the right and define the terms of the debate ourselves.

By pumping up hyper-partisanship, our country (America) is playing with forces that can easily get out of control. We are giving purpose and cover - and sometimes a sense of purpose - to the crazy among us. We are encouraging a culture of extremism

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

A wingnut is someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans, the unhinged activists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They're the people who always try to divide rather than unite us.

We cannot hope to change human nature. There will always be cranks and conspiracy theorists among us. But we can try to improve things - we don't have to accept the debasement of civil discourse or civic decline. We can take steps to ensure that the lunatic fringe remains on the fringe and stops bleeding into the base and then poisoning the mainstream

Godwin's law states that the longer any online debate goes on, the likelier it is that someone will play the Nazi card. It's the rhetorical equivalent of going nuclear and stupid at the same time.