>Politics has always been adversarial. Traditionally, though, we’ve had a fairly robust national consensus about a fairly broad set of goals—a strong defense, a

>Politics has always been adversarial. Traditionally, though, we’ve had a fairly robust national consensus about a fairly broad set of goals—a strong defense, a decent safety net, What? The "consensus" on the safety net is 70 years old. There are people alive today who were around when senators were denouncing Social Security as vile Bolshevism.