Real Clear Politics
It’s a rainy, muggy day in Leesburg, Va. Although the town is 30 or so miles from the interminable partisan wrangling in Washington, D.C., it’s infected with some of the same bitter polarization — as is so much of the country. On this morning in July, I’m walking into a Veterans of Foreign Wars post that looks as if it hasn’t been refurbished since the Vietnam era, or maybe World War II. Noisy window air conditioners wheeze and struggle to keep two spartan meeting rooms at a tolerable temperature. But the atmosphere inside is electric.