I don’t normally do politics around here (I learned my lesson with the previous presidential election), but this column triggered a reaction in my warped little brain.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism – the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise – has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Unfortunately when it comes to overly simplistic solutions, the Republican party has no monopoly.

Few candidates for any elected office, and almost no one in the news media, wants to discuss any solution that doesn’t fit into a single-phrase talking point.

Or that requires the least little bit of sacrifice.