When Did Politics Become Our Entire Identity?
- Thread starter alaskanseminole
- Start date
AK, there is no "fault" to admit on an anonymous forum. Nobody on here is responsible for policies that are enacted and corruption by politicians.
This is simply a discussion forum. Surprised that has somehow escaped you and you think this forum is more than it is.
Clinton also signed the horrific Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. It repealed the key provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which had long maintained a wall separating commercial banking (taking deposits and making loans) from investment banking (brokering and underwriting securities).
While not the only reason for the 2008 GOP meltdown, it put us on that path. Bush added unwise tax cuts for the rich, 2 wars (at least one an unjustified, criminal war), and reckless deregulation. Rs blame it on the gay guy (Barney Frank).
That bill passed 90-8 in the Senate; 362-57 in the House. So it was a bipartisan bill in that sense. But the Rs were overwhelmingly behind it (only 6 no votes across both Houses), the Ds less so, 58 no votes, plus Bernie.
You can tell what kind of bill it was by the Dem Senators who voted against it: Barbara Boxer, Richard Bryan, Byron Dorgan, Russell Feingold, Tom Harkin, Barbara Mikulski, and Paul Wellstone
I didn't justify corruption by anybody. What makes you imagine I did? Point to a post.
My analysis has long been that Trump is a horrible person - but that his policies are far better for the nation than dems like Biden and Harris.
I am far more interested in what is best for the nation than being able to come on this forum and virtue signal that I am too virtuous to vote for a horrible person when the alternative is someone like Biden who can do great harm, as he did, through his policies.
Sadly, I’ve begun to question whether there is a majority middle any more. I’m really not sure, and as I’ve said elsewhere, the team game thing is one of the few things in life that actually worries me for the sake of my kids.As a Christian and former Republican who's now an Independent, I've really been thinking lately about how divided we've allowed ourselves to become over politics. ...especially, since migrating over to this board and it's really not different from HROT (outside the gawd-awful orange). Honestly I don't even think most Americans are nearly as far apart as SM, MSM and message boards make it seem.
It feels like somewhere along the way politics stopped being about disagreements over policy and started becoming team jersey identity...quite literally us vs them or the dumber "good vs evil". We've gotten to the point where people assume your entire worldview, intelligence and even character is based on who you voted for.
Doesn't the data point to most people actually living somewhere in the middle? Personally, I still lean fiscally conservative. I think national debt matters. I think government waste is real (Huey and I once had a great conversation about defense spending). I think endless spending from BOTH parties eventually catches up to us.
But I also think its reasonable discuss out of control healthcare costs and whether corporations have too much influence (look'n ast you, Big 3!).
As I said in the mosque shooting thread, I'm a strong 2A supporter. I grew up around guns, respect responsible ownership &absolutely believe Americans have a constitutional right to defend themselves. BUT I also don't think every single discussion about gun safety automatically equals "they’re coming for your guns." I think there's room for adults to talk about mental health, enforcement failures and realistic safeguards without instantly treating each other like we're frack'n enemies.
Same thing with abortion. I'm personally pro-life morally and spiritually but I also recognize that many Americans wrestle with incredibly difficult situations that don't fit into my belief system.
Sadly, being moderate or in the middle or whatever doesn't generate clicks. Outrage does and we've pretty much allowed ourselves to become emotionally manipulated into constant outrage. Anyone remember the Manatee Gray color "controversy" at Target a few years back? Geebus.
Ithink it's obvious how we got here, but how to we get away from it?
Social media certainly hasn’t helped, and I don’t know that Mrs Davis will either. I don’t know that it adds much to figure out where it started, as I think it just devolves quickly as we’ve already seen here. In terms of modern genesis, some might point to Lee Atwater’s campaign management approach.
But if I had to try to identify something a little more directly impactful, I might go with the phenomenon known as Hillary Clinton. To be very clear here, I am absolutely not saying it is her “fault,” and indeed I think quite the opposite is more true in that republicans embraced the current dynamics quickly in reaction to her. But I think a case can be made that she has been something of an inflection point, and on several reinforcing occasions. Again, no judgment intended - just an interesting history.
As an unelected person from Wellesley rather than an elected one from Arkansas, I think her hc task force role caused a visceral reaction that set the lines against Bill, who otherwise out-savvied the republicans in most things, which of course began the parade of impeachments we now get to see every couple of years.
Bush v Gore certainly took us a step backwards from there. (Btw, icymi, that is when the “hardball” and Fox News models emerged). Then after a short unity hiatus following 9/11 and then overreach in the ME, we had Hillary running again. R’s crossed over in d primaries to vote for Obama to try to prevent that. Whether it worked or not, who knows, but Obama was elected and that brought its own ridiculous forms of trench warfare from the right. Especially when hcr got passed, which of course reminded r’s of Hillary. I admire Obama for how he kept his cool during a lot of that nonsense. But the sec of state position coupled with the Clinton foundation as a launch platform was something he should have put the kibosh on.
Then of course 2016. We had “deplorables” during the campaign, a temper tantrum on election night, and then of course the nearly immediate introduction of massive resistance and russiagate. I do wonder sometimes if he might have turned out less crazy if he’d had the usual chance that presidents get to govern, even if for just a little while. Either way, I’m pretty confident that at least some of what we're reaping today was sown back then.
Then Covid, which Trump decided to turn political when it didn’t go away, and the left gladly invoked for electoral reforms, which of course Trump and the right gladly invoked to try for return of the son of bush v gore 2 in 2020. And that’s setting aside Covid itself isolating people and then turning them into hypervaxxers and antivaxxers.
Biden looked like a temperature lowering opportunity as a former “malleable” legislator without a whole lot of principles. But of course he was asleep at the wheel and so the inmates ran the asylum, with warden and kingmaker Clyburn behind the scenes. Not just a lost opportunity, a counterproductive one.
By that time the dye’s pretty much cast. Trump almost gets assassinated - that probably didn’t help. So he gets elected and the revenge tour begins, including continuing obsession with Hillary (though by this point that’s probably the least of our worries).
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How can you be so naive?
If there was damning evidence against Trump, you be sure Biden/Harris would have leaked it - and also that Epstein's attorneys would have used it as blackmail for a deal. None of that happened.
Then it shouldn't require so much to release all of the files if it is a big nothing burger. A release which was mandated by law.
When the house is burning down around you it becomes most of what you talk about.
Come on man, Hillary Clinton???
Mayne the issue is people like you keep voting for Trump knowing he’s a corrupt, criminal POS.
That's just classic aardvark.
1775 was probably the start with things getting real spicy in the 1860's.
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When did politics become our entire identity? On November 9, 2016 when half of America lost their f'ing minds.
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That's dumb and it isn't at all true.
So many words just to say “it’s your fault we’re the way we are.”
LOL... Those of us who have been around a while know the opposite is true. The real comic relief was (and remains) the second you realized you had made a fool of yourself for telling us for months that, "you'll be calling Hillary "MADAM PRESIDENT" on Wednesday...."
Wednesday was November 9, 2016.
See how I did that?
Dope. This made me smile so much that I was thinking about buying you a beer again next time I'm out in CA.
Which was started by getting us introduced to Sarah Palin. She brought political extremism to the national spotlight.
Scott Adams may have been one of the first to document it in August 2017.
Love this article. He articulated the exact behavior of many on the American left at the time (and now for that matter... lol).
How To Know You're In A Mass Hysteria Bubble
https://peakd.com/@zer0hedge/dilber...-how-to-know-you-re-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble
.....A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies. We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we’ll see how that plays out.
The most visible Mass Hysteria of the moment involves the idea that the United States intentionally elected a racist President. If that statement just triggered you, it might mean you are in the Mass Hysteria bubble. The cool part is that you can’t fact-check my claim you are hallucinating if you are actually hallucinating. But you can read my description of the signs of mass hysteria and see if you check off the boxes.
If you’re in the mass hysteria, recognizing you have all the symptoms of hysteria won’t help you be aware you are in it. That’s not how hallucinations work. Instead, your hallucination will automatically rewrite itself to expel any new data that conflicts with its illusions.
But if you are not experiencing mass hysteria, you might be totally confused by the actions of the people who are. They appear to be irrational, but in ways that are hard to define. You can’t tell if they are stupid, unscrupulous, ignorant, mentally ill, emotionally unstable or what. It just looks frickin’ crazy.
And that's when Trump switched parties because he found gullible idiots
Fine with me. Most likely Trump is protecting someone else, just as Biden likely did.
Fair point and well made, AK, but justify is not the right term. 'Putting up with' is better.
I am willing to put up with Trump's corruption since he is the best option we have and his policies are far better for the nation than the sorry excuses who came before him. I would have been happy to put up with Biden's considerable corruption had his policies been beneficial for the country instead of so damaging.
I mean, Trump is in those files over 30 times more than Jesus is in the Bible and we don't even have all of them yet. Can you say the same about Biden or anywhere even close Captain Bothsides?
Then it should have been easy for Epstein's attorneys to get a deal for Epstein.
Or do you think Epstein was above blackmail?
The idea that the Democratic Party is some wild-eyed socialist/communist party is total horse crap. Anyone claiming Clinton or Obama or Biden were anything other than centrists is either an idiot or a liar. They’ve had AOC/Omar and Sinema/Manchin in the same congress.
The GOP, on the other hand, is all in on Trump. Cross him and you will lose your next primary. The “team game” isn’t our problem - the problem is that we are a profoundly stupid country. A smart country would have self-corrected after 1/6 and the GOP would have renounced Trumpism. In a really smart country, Donald Trump would have never sniffed the Oval Office.
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LOL, dude. That's wishful thinking on your part. Trump doesn't give a shiat about anyone other than himself. He's a sociopath. He wants to prevent more evidence of his raping 13 year-olds from becoming public.
When idiots like this were able to share stupid stuff like this on multiple different platforms.
You can't use your SNAP benefits for airline tickets, so your traveling to California will have to remain a pipe dream. Or in your case, a wet dream.