Partisan Polarization

Is it common place if you can only name a few specific incidents, most of which aren't even really partisan in nature?

 

Yes, you have a point, but like everything perception becomes each of our own realities!!!! I guess the 24-hour news cycle has a lot to do with the perception. I will say was on vacation for a week and had no TV and too busy to do much on internet and came back a hell of a lot happier than when I left!!!!

 

I live in Asheville and am often in the DC area. I know about this maddening wokeness which I think you’re referencing. In a sense, i suppose that’s bullying and get your point. I don’t know that I would compare it to the GOP, but I acknowledge my partisanship. I will say this, I often play Devil’s advocate to those of my relatives and friends who say, for example, that I shouldn’t use certain words. They almost never get irate, and I understand their viewpoint. I understand the GOP’s viewpoint on issues. It’s their hatefulness and, in some cases, what I consider their anti-Americanism that so disturbs me.

Whereabouts do you lay you head?

 

To be clear, I do not see them as equivalent - the far left and the far right - the far right being worse.

I live in TX, DFW area. I don’t run into a lot of car lefters here. As to those on the far right, they are everywhere, but often are otherwise “normal” people.

In politics I tend to run against the grain.

 

These are fringe crazy People. Honest question — can you differentiate between the lunatics and the middle? Stop feeding the narrative that good people with different ideological differences are bad and lumping people together.

 

First, tell me what "do nothing 47-year" means, then block me, because rather than this time deflecting, you're now comparing apples and oranges. I can't remember all my posts, but I don't think I've run to the defense of attacks on Biden, and I know I've expressed my own displeasure with his leadership. So, I'm not some Biden apologist. You sure seem to be a Trump one.

Moreover, I have repeatedly stated on this site that I did not disagree with every single one of Trump's policies or initiatives. One of my fundamental beliefs is that reasonable people can reasonably differ. My ONLY concern has been that a thoroughly rotten and corrupt human being and a narcissist ascended to the presidency and disgraced the office. Disagree with that? Okay, how's this. Once it became obvious that he was about to be booted out of that office for those very reasons, he started claiming the election was being rigged and.......hell, unless you live under a rock, you know the rest of the story.

Never in the history of the country have we had a president who so blatantly refused to concede defeat (a narcissist never will), who refused to peacefully transfer power, and who still pedals the utter absurdity that the election was fraudulent. What kind of American is not absolutely outraged by that? What kind of American makes excuses for him or compares Biden to him?

I'll tell you who: An AINO (American In Name Only).

 

My nearest neighbor is from Texas and is a Trumper, but he's a nice guy with a wicked sense of humor. He just hates liberals, defined as anyone left of Ted Cruz, and would vote for Hitler or Cruz before he'd vote for any liberal. It's totally irrational, but we don't talk politics for the most part, though we do some issues.

 

The “middle” doesn’t exist.


Most Republicans still falsely believe Trump’s stolen election claims. Here are some reasons why. - Poynter

 

Oh, man. I truly respect you. We need to push back on what the media tells us and reach out to the reality.

 

So your “middle” opinion is that the election wasn’t fixed but the opinion polls are fixed? I’m not really following here. Do you think the vast majority of republicans think the election was illegitimate?

 

Yes... politics is become a sport more an more to some people. It's "yay, I'm for the other team" and "your team sucks..." With little to no regard to the actual substance of a political view. Some people freak out at the sound of a name in politics. That has to be some sort of disorder...

 

I suspect now is as good a time as any to ask the questions.

How do we look at politics and what's gone wrong? What is at the core of liberalism and conservatism?

Yoram Hazony Rediscovering Conservatism attempts to answer these questions. Forget the extremes as we all know what those are and the extremes are not the majority of the nation as politics and carefully crafted surveys would have you believe. The battle rages in the middle and the fringes do nothing more than provide the fodder for the arguments from an extremest point of view which the middle wants nothing to do with. These arguments do nothing more than deflect and divide leaving the middle out of the equation. Is it any wonder why the middle is left with a feeling of despair, anger and rage simply because their voices fall on deaf ears?

Yoram Hazony Rediscovers Conservatism

Yoram Hazony is the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation and president of the Herzl Institute. His 2018 book, The Virtue of Nationalism, established Hazony as one of the leading proponents of a new kind of “national conservatism.” His new book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, has set off a passionate debate among intellectuals on the Right to determine what “national conservatism” actually means and why conservatism needs to be rediscovered. We put those questions and many more to Hazony in this interview.​

 

I have no idea about “vast”. The republicans I know are tired of being call racist and anti-American. There are fringes of America that are pulling us apart. Let’s tell them to go take a hike. Peace

 

Many of us live in Florida, so we know that you're definitely not talking about the Republican Party here. Because it has power in this state and isn't pushing smaller government, more freedom and liberty, or respect for the rule of law and the rights of its citizens. So I guess the Democratic Party must now be anti-tax and anti-regulation.

 

Tell the people in the "middle" to start voting, including in primaries.

 

What has always struck me as odd is that above anything else, those on the right view themself as “conservative” and being conservative is a virtue above all else. However there is a lot of debate about what exactly is conservative. The label seems to be more important than any particular set of issue ideologies.

 

Will do.

 

They identify as conservative because the conservative (republican) party aligns more with their political point of view. Not to mention the democratic party has thrown them into the republican party without understanding what is happening. It certainly doesn't mean they are conservative through and through or fringe. The same holds true for the democrats.

The term Independent is much more appropriate for both democrats and republicans. The independent party is not a viable alternative for a multitude of reasons. Independents understand this. An Independent is just as likely to caucus with the democrats as they are to caucus with republicans. This is why you have independents hijacking the republican party. Democrats in my opinion have ceded to the fringe and they are just beginning to understand the folly of their decisions. I'd wager the majority of Independents want nothing to do with the democratic party.

 

Ive followed this stuff for 4 decades and there has always been an infatuation among the right with being “conservative”. It is sort of viewed as a form of perfectionism/enlightenment. It doesn’t consistently stand for any particular set of ideologies. I’ve know people who have significantly different views but still view themselves as “conservative”. My only point was the infatuation with the word as a goal, a descriptor or an ideal. You generally don’t see the same thing on the left with “liberal” or “progressive”, or at least not to that level.

I wasn't making any specific observations on political parties, although Republicans almost always want to be viewed as conservative. Often I’ve seen people who by all accounts are reasonably moderate on their issue profile but somehow are pulled to the right in a desire to be conservative.