Today's political parties and the Donatists

Conservative columnist David Brooks was recently interviewed by Gail Collins of The New York Times. The subject was religion, although it strayed into politics. Mr. Brooks compares today’s Democrats and Republicans with the Donatists:

Did you know that even though they lived roughly 1,700 years ago, the Donatists were just like our two parties today. They were more interested in following their accepted doctrine than in looking at reality. Augustine smoked them in debate.

We hope that strikes you as interesting, and that it leads you to the rest of the interview, here.