Goldwater claimed that he and Jack Kennedy had agreed to a whistle stop tour on the same train together had Kennedy survived long enough for it to happen. Apparently they were friends and looked forward to hanging out in a friendly manner as the train cruised across country – then getting out and bad mouthing each other in formal statements in each town, then going back to the club car for cocktails awaiting the next stop. Do not recall where I heard it, but it is out there somewhere.
Lauding Romney for standing up to Trump doesn’t absolve him of other sins. It’s like lauding an escaped convict for saving a drowning child. Sure, we’re glad he saved a kid’s life and praise him so, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s also committed multiple armed robberies.
The Mormons I know are stand-up people. I disagree with a lot of what Romney believes. It did take guts and courage to stand up to Trump. Although some credit is due, history may well emphasize the people who did not.
Ford and Carter were both Naval Officers. Goldwater and McGovern, referenced above, were both Army Air Corps pilots in World War II.
I think the shared experience of military service went a long way in increasing the civility across opposing parties. And look where we are now. We had, what, 12 Republican primary challengers in 2016, not a single veteran among them. The Democrats did better this year with two veterans, Buttigieg and Gabbard. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of them were among the more poised of the contestants on that stage.
Okay. But:
- Nobody elected him President.
- He was probably selected to balance out his paranoid asshole running mate.
- He pardoned the paranoid asshole for committing crimes.
IMO, the white-hats who generously give air cover to paranoid assholes are no different from the ones they’re protecting. That’s the real problem with Republicans, they shamelessly enable and elevate the worst actors in their party.
Veterans remind people that Republican elites not only lack the physical courage they demand of others, but actively undermine the support system there to help people that they sent to pointless wars.
That’s why Democrats nominate military veterans, and Republicans happily tear veterans to pieces. They don’t like to be reminded of their own cowardly fecklessness.
Liberals still respect conservatives, and conservatives still respect liberals. The difference is that, nowadays, almost all of both are found in the same political party. And neither liberals nor conservatives have an easy time respecting modern Republicans, and modern Republicans don’t respect anyone.
Asahi, you and I very strongly agree.
And very strongly disagree.
The Never Trumper Lincoln Project Republicans have burned their bridges with the current bunch of Republicans- they are all hated and scorned by that crowd. But that isn’t to their credit. They are horrible negative campaigners who just happen to be very, very good at what they do. In many ways they are exactly what is wrong with modern politics and it doesn’t matter which side they use their evil genius to advance. They feed on fear and desperation; they love panic and know how to leverage it to the fullest extent possible.
They are the modern equivalent of the ogre who lives outside of town the people recruit to battle the troll who is terrorizing the other side of town. Thank goodness they are going to destroy Trump and hopefully Bill Barr and Mitch McConnell as collateral damage. But you don’t want to welcome them into the citizenry. For politics to be civil and decent again those people and others like them need to get out of the game. Last night a pollster asked me almost a dozen questions aimed at making me fear and panic so I would run to the protections of a good moral REPUBLICAN alternative. They were polling to see which lies could best be used to frighten voters into voting a certain way.
For politics and therefore governance to be civil again, we need to get back to a place where we are choosing between two positive views – two positive policy platforms that address the concerns of our ever shrinking middle class. For things to become even a little more civil, both sides need to stop seeing any compromise as weakness and to quit thinking that our anointed view needs to be the ONE & ONLY paradigm in which life “should” be lived. I would love to live in a world where I could vote for something instead of mostly voting against something.
If it is true that our leaders reflect our desires then Trump is the logical conclusion to uncompromising insistence upon pushing through our view and demonizing any opposing view. The irony is that Trump has no ideology at all except personal power. He just says the things he believes will make certain voters favor him more than the other guy. Liberals are pushing the progressive agenda and the conservatives are pushing the biblical agenda and for both sides it becomes a holy war of sorts. Both sides need to learn what opposition means and forget what enemy means with regard to public policy and civil norms.
If our leaders are going to reflect we the people, then we the people need to be reasonable and accepting. Those of us who do not believe soldiers die because of policy concerning gays need to accept others have a different view. Fire breathing Republicans (in almost every case the only kind I know personally) need to stop insisting everyone live by their moral imperatives found in their sacred writings. (What Seth Andrews calls “the Goat Herders Guide to the Universe” – hilarious; and I attended a bible college in my young adult years.) I strongly advocate for having a moral stance, for thinking about the world and consulting others including your parents and loved ones BUT ALSO others who know way more than your immediate circle. Then live by those principles and be willing to influence others into your - - - what belief system? Moral paradigm? Life’s wisdom? Existential platform? But not insist others agree with us. In fact to avoid group thought as much as possible; to both influence and be influenced and not be locked down to policies but to bigger moral imperatives. Like every human deserves respect. (If sanctity of life is your principle, perhaps your views on abortion and capital punishment should be consistent for example. If your party or religion insists you discard proven science it is not politics or religion at all – it is a cult.) It took me twelve years to go from being ultra conservative to moderate (or what my more extreme Republican associates refer to as bordering on Socialism). As long as it is progress, slow is okay; I highly discourage regression however!
Being able to change, grow, and learn will make us all better and our leaders will be better as a natural result. The secret seems to be able to examine your own stands on things and what underlying principle caused you to decide that way. Being ready to change – but not changing with every new idea seems ideal to me. It could become synergistic: the constituents being more genuine and nonpartisan will lead to political leaders being more genuine and less partisan, which will lead to constituents . . . . .
In short, we need to keep the word “us” and expand the definition, and eliminate the word “them” when referring to our fellow citizens. Once we know each other better, compromise will be easier. It will be much easier to get a conservative to agree to reasonable gun control for example if he or she does not fear it is a first step on a slippery slope to repealing the second amendment. That can only happen if you respect their views and they respect your views.
Sorry for the lengthy sermon. I feel very strongly we could be so much better and lament the fact we are not. I hope to learn some Dopers feel the same way and are working to make politics more civil.
And then again, we agree.
Is my problem that I have an outdated view of civility? I always thought it meant respecting all humans, even those you disagree with. But somehow we got to a place where more than one person was willing to vote for Donald Trump! How does a civil society do THAT?!?!
A lot of the polarization is due to neighborhoods becoming politically uniform (read The Big Sort by Bill Bishop).
Because of work at home, accelerated by COVID, some progressives are moving to rural, or almost rural, areas.
While I don’t like this from a global warming standpoint, it should encourage Republican politicians to appeal more to the center.
Do I really have confidence this will happen? No, but you asked what might cause this.
I really, really wish your hopes were correct, but I sadly don’t think so. I’ve been on several threads where in their probably justified anger at what ‘conservatives’ have done, that a blanket definition of ‘evil’ has been applied. And if the other side is evil, there is no need to find compromise or understanding. What in some ways is worse, both here, and in right-leaning sites, is that if you suggest the other side has a point, even if you disagree in part or in full the posters will come down on you as hard or harder for daring to admit the other side may have even a shred of a point.
So the moderates are even less likely to speak up, as they then get it from both sides. Which means in the long run, the only voices that are going to be heard are the extremists from both sides screaming from the proverbial rooftops.
The thing is, we’re not talking about disagreeing about funding a convention center. We’re talking about concentration camps, actively anti-democratic voter suppression, dissolving marriages, looting the economy for the benefit of the ultra rich and themselves, refusing to even admit that the looming environmental disaster exists, refusing to deal with the worst pandemic the US has ever experienced, allowing and encouraging hostile foreign powers to target Americans and interfere in American elections, and more along those lines.
And (what I forgot to mention in my post above) there’s no upside - Republicans simply don’t stand for anything positive. They say that Obamacare is bad - but with a president and both houses of congress, they were unable to come up with something to replace it. They love to talk about national defense, but their actions with regard to Russia (both allowing them to interfere in elections and failing to act when they put bounties on US troops) prove that wrong, as does their disregard for COVID issues (one aircraft carrier was rendered non-functional for a significant amount of time, and now the Joint Chiefs are quarantining).
This isn’t just ‘oh, woe is me, I have a minor political disagreement’, the fundamental underpinnings of government and representation of America are under attack, as is the fate of the planet as a whole, and the lives and health of a great many Americans. All of the hand-wringing about how meanie-pants anyone-who’s-not-Republican is to the poor Republicans doesn’t change what Republicans actually support in today’s world.
Help a foreigner out here: in the absence of a candidate for President (or one in office) - who actually leads a party in the US, in the sense of setting a tone and themes that identify the party and form the basis of policy platforms? The Congressional leadership(s)? The National Committee? Whose job is it to get them all pointing in the same direction?
Don’t know for the Democrats, but I am afraid that for the Republicans it is Rupert Murdoch. He did it in the UK too with the Tories, he’s been at it al least since Reagan/Thatcher, and Brexit and Trump are his masterpieces. He is quite successful at what he does, sadly. The only good thing about him is his age.
Each party has an official leader. The current head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is Ronna McDaniel; for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), it’s Tom Perez. Officially, it’s the committee that sets the national platforms for the parties, but when there’s a presidential election, it’s those candidates that rule the roost.
I’ll start to have a tiny bit of respect for the Republican party when they stop trying to suppress the vote and stop trying to disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters. Until then, the only Republican I voted for in this election was a local R who my family actually knows. I left every other (mostly uncontested) R blank on my ballot.
Only in comparison.
What you should take from that is that the Republicans keep putting up worse and worse candidates.
Romney as a dinner guest was rude, insulted the cook, wiped his face on the table cloth, chewed with his mouth open, and talked with his mouth full.
We were not impressed.
Then along comes Trump, who jumps on the table, kicks the food onto the ground, and takes a big dump in the centerpiece.
Romney says, “I wouldn’t take a shit on the table.”
And yeah, we look back fondly on the days when our dinner was just unpleasant, not completely ruined.