The Extremism of the Center

The New Republic is reacting calmly to the shutdown, I see:

What is a president in a presidential constitutional republic to do when faced with an intransigent, bull-headed faction among his people's representatives? Well, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected president, was once faced with a similar situation exactly 20 years ago, in October 1993….Yeltsin held a national referendum, a sort of national vote of confidence, which he won, and used it as a justification for what he did next. Almost exactly 20 years ago, he dissolved parliament.

Here's how TNR promoted its piece on Twitter:

Twitter

I suppose this is the next step after Thomas Friedman's if-only-we-were-China fantasies.

#GovernmentShutdown #Russia