I don't think you can have an honest conversation about the "partisan divide" unless you're honest about the fact that one of just two major parties is waging a fascist assault on democracy, the rule of law, and truth itself
these articles always frame people who want nationalized healthcare and people who want to exterminate minorities under a dictatorship as symmetrical ideologies and it's exquisitely annoying
…agree… painting grotesque imbalances with a “new normal” brush… objectively detached as to craft a journal from a fourth dimensional view… result is desperate authenticity… that is trying not to look awkward when reality demands “this is fucking insane” narrators …
Not sure whats worse, the way they portray what would be an incredible social good (nationalized healthcare) to an abject moral and economic failure of minority persecution. The saddest part is how the only ideological vantage that would draw these conclusions is from that of an antebellum slaver.
My biggest problem with the article is that it lumps people who are trying to get moderates to agree with one another in with people who aim to get the DSA and the alt-right to do so.
The former is a good idea. The latter is insane, both in equating the DSA with the alt-right and in general.
Yeah it's this false equivalency between ordinary left wing politics and racist authoritarianism that affluent center/right mainstream columnists adore pushing down the public's throat
People who constantly talk about “the partisan divide” and “polarization” and never talk about the substance at issue will never give it up. They would have described the Civil War as being caused by a lack of civility
Trump, if you get him started on the Civil War, will confidently tell you he would have prevented it from happening, and everybody would have been happy.
One of the two major parties wants me and my loved ones dead. The first person who suggests I compromise by letting them kill half is getting eaten by bears.
With you on the need to confront the brutal facts, but this is not quite right. Get 10 Dems in a room you have at least 11 opinions, but more than half of those folks know well what we’re up against and are doing the work to fight it, not give in.
The history of American politics is not the triumph of compromise. Civil War, New Deal, Civil Rights… none of the good stuff comes from making a deal with the reactionaries, it comes from crushing them.
these articles never seem to get (or won’t get) that in refusing to be honest about the problem they’re directly contributing to it. it makes you feel insane
Yes, the divide between Ow, You're Stomping On My Face And I Don't Like It and The Stomper. Both have the responsibility to pull together and work out their differences! I mean, the Stomped Face one is being so divisive by saying they don't like it. ;_;
/gag
Is the Democratic Party hostile to democracy?
Did the Democratic Party fail to pass their own voting rights bill because Biden failed to get Democrats to support the Democratic Party's bill?
I'm willing to have a detailed conversation about how both parties suck on democracy.
What's manipulative is pretending Republicans got bad on democracy without the Democratic Party enabling the slights against democracy.
Indeed. You don’t build bridges to the dark side, you blow them up. If any of them want to work with us, they should come over to the light side first.
It was over when Mitch McConnell blocked Obama’s Supreme Court pick. Partisan divide 🙄😳. The prologue to that was Bush vs Gore being decided by the Supreme Court. Republicans can’t win fairly so they cheat.
The biggest problem with these groups in general is that they do not want to be open forums for resolving politics issues. More than anything else they treat politics like an identity: something that’s personal, sacrosanct, and works best as a classroom rug of people holding hands around a globe
Like the takeaway is never “hey maybe if you can’t justify your beliefs you should change them” it’s “isn’t it great that we can all sit here, reciting the things we believe?”
I can get down with the idea that maybe as a defense of pluralism, just getting people to sit down together and see each other is a start. But if the adherents to white nationalism, the biggest opponents of pluralism, won’t show up, what have you done?
This, of course, leaves aside the idea that getting white nationalists together with several of the people they’d like to subjugate has positive effects on the white nationalists that outweigh potential negative effects on everyone else.
A circlejerk. Which is fine and normal to hold on a college campus but right in the classrooms? Really? Have some decency.
But seriously pluralism is only virtuous so far as it follows what John Dewey might call public reason: you can have your politics, but you don’t get to “just” have them.
In other words if racists want to show up and engage seriously and try to persuade minority groups that actually racism is good for everyone and society ok. Bon Chance. But none of this “it’s just what I believe” type of excuse. You don’t get to “just” have political beliefs in public.
You want to be expressive about politics? It’s your duty to have an argument for them and be ok making it in public. If you can’t do that shut up and re-evaluate if maybe you should change your mind.
