EDITORIAL: The lunacy in our politics

With two months left until the November elections, the mudslinging that has become the standard operating procedure in political seasons has reached fever pitch.

Even families are divided by political tension. Our failure to understand that people can be staring at the same object and have varying interpretations of it – and respect that fact – is the root cause of these divisions.

Politics poison citizens’ relations. Enduring friendships are put aside in times like this, and many may not be restored again. Still, democracy presupposes political disagreement. We must just measure the distance of that disagreement so that it does not reach the point of no return.

Politicians need us until November. After that, they’ll crawl back into their tiny cocoons of family and cronies – while we frantically search for new friends because we’ve chased away the old ones during this silly season.

This is not a call for unanimity. Abandoning partisan rivalries will accelerate the death of our democracy. We have sworn our allegiance to pluralism because we recognise that diversity is beneficial to society.

But how low are we prepared to go? The lunacy we've witnessed in recent weeks borders on danger. The hate is so deep that some people seem prepared to hurt others to get their political way.

We have a collective duty to restore society’s capacity for polite disagreement. We must make political disagreements more amicable. And when the political skies have cleared, we must firmly restore relations and laugh about the now buried differences.