The Turner Files: When political loyalty becomes a democratic liability

The Turner Files: When political loyalty becomes a democratic liability

There is a psychological phenomenon that helps explain one of the most frustrating patterns in modern politics: the sight of otherwise reasonable people defending a politician they almost certainly know, on some level, is not living up to the standards they claim to hold. It happens on the right. It happens on the left. And when it takes hold broadly enough across a society, it quietly destroys the very mechanism that makes democratic accountabi…