Partisan politics has gotten worse

I use to enjoy discussing politics. It was actually fun - it was an exchange of ideas. I heard new viewpoints, and shared mine with others. People listened to each other. They *wanted* to understand why they disagreed.

It's has gotten progressively worse. The poisonous are the ones who are so bitter about politics - not just over last election, but bitter in general. They spew partisan hatred, and that is just what it is - partisan hatred. They have this warped worldview and are so gone into partisan politics that it's all they can see. I was recently asked by another poster for my take - and I gave the plain honest truth, no partisanship, no party politics. Just called a spade a spade, and you know what they said? "The usual copout", and then went on with some partisan drivel about "the Repubs". You can guess what brand of partisan poison that individual prefers.

What the hell happened?

 

We use to really discuss the issues - it now seems that people care little about the issues and much about the "sides". They're more interested in bashing "Repubs" or "dumbocrats" than in actually discussing the issues.

 

politics replaced religion, it seems.

I can't see any difference between political ideologues and religious ideologues. both dangerously lunatic.

 

I detect a certain amount of partisanship in that post. Do you see this as coming primarily from one side?

It appears from comments like " the last election" and "partisan drivel about "the Repubs"...that you do.

 

Trump has successfully divided our country.

 

Lol, you mean comments like "it's NOT just over the last election"? And I mentioned one case where someone said that partisan bs with me - omg, can't talk about partisanship and mention any cases of partisanship, lmfao.

And plz tell me, how exactly do you figure calling out "partisan drivel" is inherently partisan? Hahahaha, too rich

 

That was Obama. That no good piece of Kenyan ****!

 

1. Ever-increasing gerrymandering, especially since 2010, has created ever more 'safe' districts where politicians need to cater to the extremes rather than the middle to get elected. Go look at the congressional district map of any given solid blue or red state, it's ridiculous.

2. The coordinated constellation of conservative pundits, writers, radio personalities, infotainment, and outright fake news is pulling the middle ever more rightward. Those on the left obviously object.

3. Partisan politics work. Congress critters in the same party, and the Reps are particularly consistent about this, scratch each others' backs. You vote for my issue, I vote for yours, and we both get what we want even if we both have to BS a bit.

 

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9. Start a discussion on any of those and ping me. I'd be happy to discuss those issues.

 

My point was that both of your examples seemed to take one side.

You posted only part of your quote. It was "some partisan drivel about "the Repubs"

Do you see the partisanship coming equally from both sides of the aisle?

Your OP was not at all clear on that

 

1. Yeah not talking about politicians. Talking about everyday people and posters here.
2. Pass.
3. Again, I'm not talking about politicians. I imagine few here are elected officials.

 

I think quality is often inversely proportional to the traffic volume at the sites. There are a couple boards I post at maybe once or twice a week at most that are low volume and less fertile for people wanting their dopamine fix. One has one troll but I put them on ignore out of the gates and the site became instantly more pleasurable. To me, they have found a sweet spot in having enough traffic to foster regular posting but not so much that the astroturfers come in.

Another thing is that you need to actually learn to turn down the volume on a lot of the bias stuff yourself if you want to have more meaningful discussions. I have been working hard at that (well perhaps except here). I won't watch the televised news unless twitter alerts me to a breaking story like a terror attack or something big and live with less room for in-studio "commentary and analysis". I also have greatly narrowed what I read online as far as politics and have walled off most of the click-bait bias stuff, looking for more long-form articles and analysis.

 

"The poisonous are the ones who are so bitter about politics - not just over last election, but bitter in general."

I don't know how you got from that that I was saying it's about the last election. Pretty clearly was saying it's not just one side (because I think it's a given only one side would be bitter about the last election results).

"I was recently asked by another poster for my take - and I gave the plain honest truth, no partisanship, no party politics. Just called a spade a spade, and you know what they said? "The usual copout", and then went on with some partisan drivel about "the Repubs"."

Yeah, I gave one example - what, giving an example is now partisan?

"They're more interested in bashing "Repubs" or "dumbocrats" than in actually discussing the issues."

I just don't know how you read this and think that I believe it's just coming from one side dude.

 

That's considerably clearer than your OP. I'll leave it at that

 

Thats what Ive been saying.

 

That's all quoted right from the op, except the last quote, which was posted a few minutes after the op and before anyone else posted. I think you just read into **** that wasn't there.

 

Dunno about that. I'd say things got worse like a year or so before the election, but I've seen precious little intelligent discussion the whole time I've been here.

 

Yeah the partisan horse crap always gets tunes up during election season, but it seems like it was turned up to 11 and then after the election it didn't die down like it normally does, it got worse. It's like constant election season.

 

Baseless conspiracy theory BS like this sure hasn't helped.

 

Maybe it is just as a third partier, but I haven't seen much of a difference on this front between the most recent election and the three before.

 

Yeah, it's gotten really bad. I actually have a close friend who during the campaign last year was very supportive of Trump, and another close friend who was very supportive of Clinton. We have found it necessary to implement an informal pact that when we are together, we refrain from discussing any politics. It's too bad, 'cuz like you I enjoy hashing out ideas and discussing points of view. I think that even colleges suffer from being unable to entertain opposing views these days. You don't have to agree with someone in order to appreciate their reasoning abilities and their use of logic. I remember seeing an interview with Alan Dershowitz during the GOP campaigns last year, and he was offering comments about one of his favorite students, someone he still considers one of the best he's ever had the privilege of teaching. That student? Ted Cruz. Now you probably can't find two individuals having more diametrically opposing political views than Dershowitz and Cruz, yet both men speak very highly of the other. It would seem that civil discourse is no longer considered to be of value, that "winning" is all that matters, even if "winning" involves letting the discussion devolve into name calling and "Uh uh. Uh huh." exchanges. It is a sad state of affairs which I hope we're able to correct at some point. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon...

 

If it is a safe district, why would you need to pander to anybody since you are safe?

 

You are right that it never died down after the election.

Part of the reason for that is the fact that the election was not tainted and not accepted as being a fair representation of the Will of the People. The anger that was readily apparent amongst both Bernie and the BLOTUS supporters never had the opportunity to cool off. The "sore winners" took malicious delight in mocking the losers. The goading and taunting posts about "lib'rul tears" were not intended to "unite" the nation. On top of that the BLOTUS did nothing to unite the nation either.

Then came the revelations that there was Russian hacking that could have altered the outcome. That investigation is still ongoing and the speculation is allowing the unrest to fester. Couple all that with civil unrest from both sides that has escalated into violence and no leadership whatsoever from the Oval office and things are turning ugly.

All of that emotion is turning up in the threads and disrupting them. Probably the most rational and sane one was the discussion on Ranked Voting systems. Even this attempt on the OP's part to discuss why there is so much partisanship is feeling the brunt of it. I have no doubt that the OP has probably taken umbrage to a least one of the things that I have already posted even though my intent is not to offend but just to describe. And yes, I am guilty of making my disdain for the BLOTUS clear in my posts. We the People across the board deserve better and I would settle for the "relative sanity" of Pence instead. At least the nation would not be lurching from crisis to crisis on a daily basis. And let's not kid ourselves as to the source of this angst. It is 99% self inflicted from BLOTUS and his feckless regime.

So how does one have a rational discussion when one side flat out refuses to acknowledge these egregious shortcomings and instead defends the odious fallacious equivalence that racist white supremacist nazis are "good people"?

That is a massive divide. I have not seen a single poster on the left defend the violence of Antifa or BLM even though they are constantly accused of doing so. And this just epitomizes the puerile level that the debate has reached. 'He did it, no, he did it first!" There is fault on both sides here and there is a serious problem with a failure to understand the terminology. The Antifa and BLM are Anarchists, not Nazis. The racist white supremacists are the Nazis. But just trying to get that simple definition clarified is impossible.

Civil discourse relies upon both sides being willing to "agree upon the rules" and one of those rules is to accept the defined meanings of the terms that will be used. The "fake news" and "alt facts" memes have been used as blunt instruments to destroy the very basis on which a civil discussion can take place. Couple that with the screeds of disinformation that is being churned out in such massive quantities that just trying to keep above it is a full time task.

So perhaps we need our own PF Truth & Reconciliation Commission here to admit to our own failures and take a pledge to stick to the principles of civil discourse in the future.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

I can name one but really I agree with your post and the OP's point. If you really want me too I will but honestly with the number of posters here just about every view point is expressed by someone on here.

It gets old seeing people go right for an indirect personal attack instead of actually addressing the issues at hand. I have been guilty of venting on some people here mostly because I am of the belief of dishing back out what I get plus more. But what people have told me about an eye for eye making the world blind seems to becoming our reality and at some point it needs to stop. I don't think anything any time soon will get this trend to stop, but I hope it does.