General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLegitimate Debate No Longer Possible W/GOP Now. Division & Hatred Impossible To Bridge.
It looks like we are at a complete impasse in the US because we cannot get anything done. The GOP has decided unless you let them wreck the country completely they will not cooperate. They will only obstruct and sabotage any efforts that are not theirs.
We have to win super majorities to move forward. I do not see how we can soon enough to stop the country from just about collapsing. The US is prisoner to this GOP. And they are like the suicide bomber that if they do not get their way they will blow th entire nation up.
We are at that point based on what is gong on. Their reaction to these multiple massacres says volumes.
rainy
(6,091 posts)pnwmom
(108,977 posts)and even some GOP that didn't vote for Trump and still don't like him. We need to try to keep lines of communication with them open.
greyl
(22,990 posts)johnsolaris
(220 posts)Hi,
I had a Republican canvasser come by my house to get out the vote. I attempted to engage him in a intelligent way. He called one of your moderates, John Mc Cain a RINO, republican in name only & said they must get rid of people like that to move forward. There is no compromise with these people & I truly believe that if we do not do something, it will be "The Handmaid's tale or Nazi Germany on our doorstep , soon.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Notice that under Clinton it wasn't so bad. When Bush was inaugurated it still wasn't horrible. Perhaps 9/11 had something to do with it, but their graph is from 2004, meaning the Iraq War had started. So who knows?
Other graphs (not this one) show that the split really picked up in 2007. It continued through Obama's election (notice, it didn't start with Obama's win, although that certainly helped push people right and left) and it picked up even more after 2011 (meaning that it wasn't Obama the person). In 2016 the 'lumps' on the Pew charts flattened--the medians stayed about right, but people moved more right or more left, balanced by some flow to the center.
Trump's win also helped split. But much of the division happened not because of Trump, but under Obama.
Much of the polarization is a sorting of views on discrete topics. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/23/in-polarized-era-fewer-americans-hold-a-mix-of-conservative-and-liberal-views/ (There are other sources, but why be diverse when one source can provide all my information?) In other words, those holding one position are falling into line with all the others holding that position. It's like Snow's two cultures: It was true once that if you did technical, scientific stuff you also did at least some humanistic, artistic stuff. By his day, he could lament that if you did technical and scientific work you were walled off from the arts and humanities; and if you did H&A, you didn't do STEM. The traits and attributes were sorted into two discrete stacks, and each set up their own value system--and, worse, each thought they had the one true way.
My observation: Whenever you force people to do what's "correct" when they haven't bought into it just pushes them away. That can be Christian missionaries trying to convert those with some sort of pre-existing beliefs. It can be political missionaries trying to convert those with some sort of pre-existing beliefs. The missionaries are sure they have the unbridled, ultimate truth, and their views will usher in the millennium. This produces teams, where the goal of winning for the team and the goal of beating the other side are inseparable from making society pure and destroying the infidels. True believers and those who see victory and a benefit buy into it; those who don't, need to be killed, or at least marginalized and made politically inoffensive until they can be assimilated, quarantined, or die off. The goal of the behavior is the same, but we humans only have so many behavioral schemata that we fall back on.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)There is no way of that happening.
What is plan b?
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)I am not sure either.
Squinch
(50,949 posts)DinahMoeHum
(21,784 posts). . .just sayin'
GOTV, folks. Ground Game.
We must bust ours. . .so that we can KICK THEIRS.
cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)more than anything for his ability to engage in a friendly, respectful way with people whose politics were abhorrent. He was able to sustain meaningful conversations with the likes of Bill O'Reilly. I would give anything to have his ability.
PufPuf23
(8,772 posts)No time like the present.
Wounded Bear
(58,648 posts)Repubs have largely forced out anybody willing to work with anybody outside of their cabal. No "moderates" left.