Can the center hold? (Henry J. Aaron, Brookings)

The first stanza of William Butler Yeats much quoted poem, The Second Coming, contains the words:

‘Things fall apart, the center cannot hold....
The best lack all conviction,
While the worst are full of passionate intensity.’

It is unclear whether these words, penned in 1919 referred only to the Irish war of independence or somehow expressed a prescient vision of what Yeats called ‘the blood-dimmed tide’ that would soon engulf Europe. But there can be little doubt that these words eerily convey the tone and content of much that passes today for political speech in the United States.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2016/04/18-can-the-center-hold-aaron