Let’s review what happened politically to get to the shutdown. Essentially, the Republicans, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner, played a gigantic game of political chicken against the Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama. This game (and I use the term very loosely here with full understanding that the shutdown had very real negative effects) was more like a schoolyard fight where two kids who don’t really want to fight get egged on by the crowd. The “crowd” for this event had many faces: the Tea Party, Sen. Ted Cruz and his 21-hour-19-minute quasi-filibuster (including reading Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham), and maybe even the Koch brothers and all the conservative right-wing Super PACs they fund. End result: Speaker Boehner and the Republicans had their bluff called, and after 16 days, the House voted not only to fund the government but also raised the debt ceiling, all without defunding Obamacare. Kind of a lose-lose scenario for the Republicans.

How did the things get so bad? How did we get beyond partisanship in Washington to a new level of “hyperpartisanship” (an idiotic term that I am sure will be trumped by “superhyperpartisanship” by Wolf Blitzer on CNN any day now)? The answer is simple but surprisingly won’t be found in Washington or anywhere else inside the Beltway. The problem is actually in your hometown and every other town in America. It starts in the cornfields of Iowa and reaches out to every voting district in all corners of the nation. Why? Because that’s where our country is becoming more “blue” and “red” every day. In small towns, medium-sized suburbs, and big cities, the “moderate” is a dying breed, potentially doomed to extinction and perhaps an exhibit in the Smithsonian in the very near future. Doomed because the far right and far left are becoming “righter” and “lefter” every day. Doomed because our very own democratic process allows for individual members of Congress to prevent the body as a whole from doing its job. Doomed because we have lost the voice of reason in the never-ending din of hyperbole and one-upmanship that drives our political process.

Pick the one issue that you are most passionate about and then do what we do best: be a leader on that issue. Make a call to an elected official, write a letter, testify on a bill, and, yes, maybe even run for office.

So whom should we blame for the mess? A) The Democrats, B) The Republicans, or C) The Tea Party? The correct answer, of course, is D) All of the Above. And while the media may not be the lead players in this circus, they sure run away with the “Best Supporting Role” award for the 24/7/365 mind-numbing “Shutdown Countdown Clocks” that we were subjected to leading up to the shutdown. Perhaps in response to this debacle and the whopping nine-percent approval rating that they had after the shutdown, Congress has actually passed an omnibus funding bill that keeps the government open for business through Sept. 30, 2014. The implementation of this funding bill will end the automatic sequester cuts that were in place when Congress couldn’t pass a budget last year. Before you get too excited about the sequester cuts going away, note that the new budget keeps in place the two-percent Medicare cuts that were part of the sequester.