Not long before the General Assembly adjourned in June, House Speaker Thom Tillis was asked about the far-right nature of the session and he brushed off the question, saying that the only reason the Republican agenda seems so far to the right of the state's mainstream is that the “far left” has been running the General Assembly for so long.

The comment reflects Tillis' major worry that voters will discover just how radical the goals of the Republicans legislative majorities are, but there's more to it than that.

Tillis' comment, as absurd as it was, is an example of what has become a troubling theme in the political discourse these days, the gross distortion of the spectrum of debate.

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