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.

If you only take offense when the president of your party is compared to Hitler, then you're part of the problem.

The American people are smart. They've gotten sick of the predictable hyperpartisan talking points and canned anger.

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

It's important to remember that Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left - comparing him to Hitler, calling him a terrorist and a tyrant - preceded Obama Derangement Syndrome on the right.

Right now, politics follows the rules of talk radio - using conflict, tension, fear, and resentment to find new recruits.

Politics follows the lines of physics: every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.