I believe that the far-right and the far-left can be equally insane - but there's no question that in the first years of the Obama administration, the far-right has been far crazier. In part, this comes from parties being out of power - without the responsibility of governing to ground them, the activists and the ideologues take over.

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

The two parties are still more polarized than ever before and the rise of partisan media is an important reason for it.

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

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

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

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