Get coffee. Save democracy. We’ll pay the tab.

Four years ago, at a moment when we seemed on the brink of cataclysmic political discord, when respectful discourse appeared so often to be yielding to mindless partisanship, I urged folks to have coffee the day after the election with someone whose politics they opposed. I even said I’d pick up the tab.

Exactly no one took me up on the offer.

On the one hand: Whew! We averted mayhem at The Sweet Spot and the Hardware Cafe, servers overwhelmed by frenzied citizens in search of free joe. And I saved some change.