doug941 wrote:n7axw wrote:No, you haven't heard worse from Maxine Waters. She can get pretty loud and in your face with her point of view. But she has never advocated violence against anyone. I suspect that a comment like this reflects a bias against strong black women.
As for Daryl's question, our divisions are pretty deep. From my point of view, much of what we are looking at is with the election of Donald Trump, the extreme right has been main streamed. Worse, the Republicans, instead of sticking with Reagan/Goldwater style conservatism, seem to be drinking the Trump coolaid.
I hope that what will happen after Trump is gone is that they wake up from their hang over and sober up and get back to selling conservatism to the public in a more normal way as well as opening their party to people of color since that is what they will need to do to survive in an increasingly diverse society.
But if they keep drinking the coolaid , things are going to stay tense for a long time. If they choose that route, I see them marginalizing themselves. Frankly, having the Republicans spend some time in the political wilderness would be a good thing both for them and the country as a whole.
Don
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At least be honest enough to admit that for every drop of Rightist KoolAid, there is an equivalent drop of Leftist KoolAid. Instead of trying to find common ground, BOTH parties are racing to the extremes.
This current situation isn't really a matter of left v right in a normal sense, Doug. Yes, there is both leftist coolaid and rightist coolaid. That much is healthy in a democracy. People need choices. If one bunch screws up, vote the suckers out, sort of thing. Nothing wrong with that.
My perspective is sort of center left. I've been a Democrat all my life. What keeps me a Democrat is I think caring for the least among us is a social responsibility, not just an individual one. I also believe that government can be a tool in problem solving. Not the only tool, but a tool. Have the Democrats drifted left over the years? Yes, some. But not dramaticly. I remember some of the discussions back in the 60s and 70s when the Vietnam war and Medicare were the hot botton topics. Not much difference in the discussion except the subjects are now Medicare for all and immigration.
Now on to the Republicans as I see them. I won't claim an objective point of view. What they represent is small government and both social and fiscal conservatism. So far, so good. Lots of people find that attractive. If they package themselves well, they can win elections and become the governing party.
BUT...
I think that the Republicans are off the rails right now to the point where It's hard to recognize them. Small government has morphed into hatred of government. Instead of being inclusive, they have become an instrument of white power. And compromise is the equivalent of treason. Political opponents become enemies instead of political opponents. Norm Ornstein, a conservative, wrote a book which he coauthored with a liberal whose name I don't remember in which he describes the Republicans as the outlier (sp) of American politics. He traces their journey back to the 1968 election when Nixon initiated his Southern strategy to capitalize on white racial resentment to build his majority following the enactment of the civil rights act. I could trace this journey, but the bottom line is that the Republican Party has hardened into what we have today. Many of the old line conservatives are furious and have left the party over this.
You imply an equivalence, implying that both sides are equally responsible for what's happened. Untrue. We had our own brush with extremism back in the 70s. Remember Patty Hurst and her kidnapping by the Symbonise (sp) Liberation Army? That was leftist to the point of being Communist. Gonna introduce the revolution, they were... And they weren't the only ones. There were a whole clutter of left wing extremist groups out there. But mainline liberals never embraced its extremists. Instead they were marginalized. Eventually they withered up and went away.
Republicans, on the other hand, have embraced their extremists. Except in cases of extreme emergency, there is no one for Democrats to negotiate with. Compromise is treason, after all. So what we face is unrelenting opposition, sometimes to ideas that Republicans themselves once embraced.
So nope. The hard line opposition to bipartisan working together is a Republican story, not a Democratic one. The notion that there is equivalence and that both sides are at fault is a false narrative.
Don
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