Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicia

To see why (D) is wrong, let's start by breaking down the passage.

The argument concludes that "the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well." In other words, the fact that politicians are behaving insincerely demonstrates that the government is functioning well. Why? Because sincerity would make necessary political compromises more difficult.

Let's now consider (D):


Does this weaken the conclusion that insincerity shows that the government is functioning well? Well, that would require a few leaps.

First, we'd need to assume that compromise allows a political party to enact its policies. Yet we really don't know if that's the case -- perhaps compromise would impede a political party from enacting its policies, since they might have to settle for some compromise that was different from their preferred policy? Either way, we don't have a direct link from "compromise" to a party enacting its policies.

Second, we'd need to assume that the enacted policies actually are detrimental. But notice the argument only says the policies "could turn out to be" detrimental -- not that they are always detrimental.

For both those reasons, (D) does a pretty weak job of undermining the reasoning, and we can eliminate it.

I hope that helps!

­avigutman , Actually I disagree Avi. 

The conclusion is essentially political compromises show (are sufficient for) the well-functioning of a government. This doesn't mean that they have to be necessary. They could be not necessary and sufficient at the same time. (Maybe there are other ways of making a government function well without any political compromises). But if they were not all that is necessary (original option-A), this effectively means that they are not sufficient and so our conclusion is weakened.

 

@PReciSioN The argument is completely lacking any connection between the difficulty level of achieving politically necessary compromises and the proper functioning of a government. That connection is assumed. So, any answer choice that undermines that connection is undermining the reasoning. ­

­I see avigutman . Thanks for the explanation!!