# "How Did We Become Bitter Political Enemies?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 16, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112 "2017-06-16T13:23:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/341 "2017-06-19T16:02:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No, I think the _method Obama used_ to try to join all the other nations on this planet in a common agreement, calling it an executive agreement instead of a treaty precisely so that he could avoid the usual course of submitting major international agreements to the Senate for ratification was what made it “on a whim”. And because of that methodology, it can be undone “on a whim” too. Them’s the breaks. Next time your side wants to commit the US to some major international agreement, I’d recommend trying a more … enduring … approach. Not as a way of introducing a hi-jack into this conversation, but the ACA took a more enduring approach and the GOP has spent years talking about its repeal. Seems there is no method enduring enough to keep the right from dismantling socially progressive policies. Majority public opinions and scientific facts be damned. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/342 "2017-06-19T16:07:56Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Not as a way of introducing a hi-jack into this conversation, but the ACA took a more enduring approach and the GOP has spent years talking about its repeal. Seems there is no method enduring enough to keep the right from dismantling socially progressive policies. Majority public opinions and scientific facts be damned. Yes, they’ve been _talking_ about it, and it hasn’t happened yet, precisely because it was passed into _law by Congress_ (and signed by the President). The basic rules are something like this: Constitutional Amendments are the most enduring. Treaties ratified by the Senate are probably next. Laws duly passed by Congress are somewhere in the middle. Executive Orders / Actions are the least enduring. Obama chose the last one for the Paris Accord. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/343 "2017-06-19T16:10:59Z")
Not the point I was making, but thank you for the civics lesson nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/344 "2017-06-19T16:11:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But, as the CiC of the military, isn’t it the president’s prerogative to determine how wars are waged? Congress gets to say yeah or nay to the war, but the president decides troop deployments, tactics and strategy. No? > > The president is not, however, CiC of the economy, which is what the Paris Accord dealt with. There’s nothing in the Paris accord that suggested the President was the CiC of the economy. President Obama didn’t create new legally binding obligations through his agreement. What happened with the Paris Agreement was that it basically followed through on measured agreed to on the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – that was an agreement entered into by President George H W Bush via his Constitutional authority and it was further ratified by the Democratic-held Senate. Even so, both the 1992 Framework and the 2016 Paris Agreement establish goals and targets and no legal consequences are stipulated for failing to adhere to them. The only thing that was accomplished by withdrawing from the agreement was basically having a sitting United States president going on record that he disagrees with a framework that’s been in place for 25 years already. But worse than that, he has made the United States look grossly callous and irresponsible in the eyes of billions of other people who, regardless of what Americans think, absolutely believe that climate change is a real and dangerous phenomenon. So when 500 year climate-related catastrophe occurs – raging forest fires in Europe and Australia, unprecedented typhoons in Asia, and extinction of island nations in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans – don’t be surprised to see a rather virulent strain of anti-Americanism in the form of boycotting US brands and blackballing American economic, military, and political interests. And if you think that these governments will just capitulate and do business with the US because we’re too big to fail, think again. That pressure will come from the grass roots of these societies, and there will be nothing that people at the top can do to stop them from protesting. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/345 "2017-06-19T16:24:27Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > So when 500 year climate-related catastrophe occurs – raging forest fires in Europe and Australia, unprecedented typhoons in Asia, and extinction of island nations in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans – don’t be surprised to see a rather virulent strain of anti-Americanism in the form of boycotting US brands and blackballing American economic, military, and political interests. And if you think that these governments will just capitulate and do business with the US because we’re too big to fail, think again. That pressure will come from the grass roots of these societies, and there will be nothing that people at the top can do to stop them from protesting. This doesn’t strike me as a significant concern. As a prediction, I think I’ll file this one away with the other “things asahi says”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/346 "2017-06-19T16:30:55Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > This doesn’t strike me as a significant concern. As a prediction, I think I’ll file this one away with the other “things asahi says”. ‘Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.’ -Greek Proverb BTW what Trump thought about the jobs in coal mines in the 90’s was: [http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990](http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990) > [@](#): > > I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son . If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination–or whatever–to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.” > > Which is? > “It” is an ability to become an entrepreneur, a great athlete, a great writer. You’re either born with it or you’re not. Ability can be honed, perfected or neglected. The day Jack Nicklaus came into this world, he had more innate ability to play golf than anybody else. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/347 "2017-06-19T17:09:40Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, they’ve been _talking_ about it, and it hasn’t happened yet, precisely because it was passed into _law by Congress_ (and signed by the President). The basic rules are something like this: > > Constitutional Amendments are the most enduring. > Treaties ratified by the Senate are probably next. > Laws duly passed by Congress are somewhere in the middle. > Executive Orders / Actions are the least enduring. > > Obama chose the last one for the Paris Accord. My apologies for saying the same thing in two separate posts, but as I posted earlier, Obama didn’t really break new ground here except to make a symbolic commitment on the part of the United States to reaffirm and live up to goals that were already agreed to by an earlier Republican – pardon me, RINO:rolleyes: – president and Democratic congress. If you want to make the argument, as some conservatives have, that Paris was symbolic and that pulling out isn’t really that big a deal, I suppose I could at least acknowledge that this is an argument that could be made. I still don’t think it’s a good one, though, and I’d go back to what I said in the previous post that you responded to. This idea that the United States is going to go it alone and behave in a manner that offends billions of people worldwide and somehow expect to enjoy the same standard of living is probably a pretty wild gamble. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/348 "2017-06-19T17:10:26Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, they’ve been _talking_ about it, and it hasn’t happened yet, precisely because it was passed into _law by Congress_ (and signed by the President). The basic rules are something like this: > > Constitutional Amendments are the most enduring. > Treaties ratified by the Senate are probably next. > Laws duly passed by Congress are somewhere in the middle. > Executive Orders / Actions are the least enduring. > > Obama chose the last one for the Paris Accord. Do you think it’s accurate to say he “chose” that option? Did he have a realistic chance of getting Congressional Republicans to support any of the more binding options? Or was the Executive Order the only way he could act on the issue in the face of deeply entrenched ideological opposition towards working with Obama on any issue he favored? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/349 "2017-06-19T17:20:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You have a very colorful writing style. It’s not very persuasive. I think you’re taking this opportunity to vent more than trying to put together a logical argument or coherent point, and that’s ok, or at least it’s a whole lot better than you mimicking James Hodgkinson’s actions and ending up dead in a baseball diamond, with most decent people thinking you’re insane. Well what do you expect? The whole point of the argument is that I have _no fucking clue_ how to reach people like you. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/350 "2017-06-19T17:23:33Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > ‘Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.’ > > -Greek Proverb HAHA! I would say the opposite. Society falls apart when empires have the time, means and luxury to plant frigging trees they arn’t even going to use. Seriously did the empires of the past have, lets be kind, and call them ‘first world problems’? Did fat Romans interrupt plays to scream about Gothophobia? Did Greek lives matter call the most liberal of senators ‘racist’? Looks like we need more bread and circuses. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/351 "2017-06-19T17:24:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Do you think it’s accurate to say he “chose” that option? Did he have a realistic chance of getting Congressional Republicans to support any of the more binding options? Or was the Executive Order the only way he could act on the issue in the face of deeply entrenched ideological opposition towards working with Obama on any issue he favored? Yes, I think it’s accurate, but as you noted, it’s because the political will didn’t exist in this country to implement any of the more binding options. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/352 "2017-06-19T17:27:42Z")
Would it be inacurate to say withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is overblown? It accomplished its means. It got every nation to recognize climate change as real and to promise to try and implement means to combat it. Withdrawing the US does nothing but show the rest of the world what it already knew. That the US is a dangerous petulant child and are not nor have ever been ‘the good guys’. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/353 "2017-06-19T17:34:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No, I think the _method Obama used_ to try to join all the other nations on this planet in a common agreement, calling it an executive agreement instead of a treaty precisely so that he could avoid the usual course of submitting major international agreements to the Senate for ratification was what made it “on a whim”. And because of that methodology, it can be undone “on a whim” too. Them’s the breaks. Next time your side wants to commit the US to some major international agreement, I’d recommend trying a more … enduring … approach. No one is arguing that one executive action cannot be undone by another. You have, however, provided a poor and unpersuasive answer to one question while ignoring all the others. On what basis do you declare the Paris accord to be a “treaty”, as opposed to a sole-executive agreement which has been used throughout history? 17,300 times since WW II, to be precise, comprising more than 94% of all international agreements. Reagan signed 2,840 executive international agreements, three times as many as Obama. Were you complaining then? How come Reagan is revered as a saint by conservatives after signing thousands of executive agreements and Obama is demonized for signing one? … Jeffrey Peake, a professor at Clemson University … said the [post-war] increase in executive agreements can be attributed to a shift in foreign policy over centuries. “Foreign policy is so much more complex today than it was ever envisioned by our framers,” he said. “To go back in the Constitution and say everything should be done as a treaty is naive.” > **[History Shows Obama Doesn't Need Congress to Seal Iran Deal](https://www.dailysignal.com/2015/03/13/will-white-house-pursue-treaty-executive-agreement-iran-heres-need-know/)** > > In a letter to Iran this week, nearly four dozen Republican Senators showcased the limitations of a potential unilateral nuclear deal by President Obama. Now let me re-iterate the questions that you completely ignored. Why do you keep harping on “Senate ratification” despite the above facts, yet apparently you don’t consider it relevant that Obama’s position has strong popular support, and as noted before, Americans are opposed to the withdrawal by a margin of 2 to 1? Who do you think was exercising legitimate leadership and who do you think was exercising a whim, the president who acted on facts and scientific advice like the rest of the world, or the one who tried to appeal to his uninformed base by making the US the one solitary rogue nation to pull out of the Paris deal? Which decision is most closely aligned with the facts, and which president has been the most uninformed and deceptive about it, as previously discussed? In short, I think it’s obvious which decision is an asinine partisan one based on nothing more than a whimsical election promise intended to appeal to climate change deniers. Not one reason given for the withdrawal has been substantiated by facts, and many are obvious lies and misrepresentations. Such is the nature of much this political divide. QED. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/354 "2017-06-19T17:39:51Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > HAHA! I would say the opposite. > > Society falls apart when empires have the time, means and luxury to plant frigging trees they arn’t even going to use. Nope, what you are going about is precisely the assumption that nations will not endure longer that a human life. > [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Seriously did the empires of the past have, lets be kind, and call them ‘first world problems’? Did fat Romans interrupt plays to scream about Gothophobia? Did Greek lives matter call the most liberal of senators ‘racist’? > > Looks like we need more bread and circuses. Trump has that covered already, seriously. What we are discussing is to have more serous people driving the ship of state and not clowns. And as I pointed before, when looking at the polls, it is clear that even independents and moderate republicans and more rational ones like Max Boot do get it. Just pointing that out because we also need to be aware that there is indeed there the capacity to stop being enemies and agree on what needs to be done. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/355 "2017-06-19T17:45:17Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > HAHA! I would say the opposite. > > Society falls apart when empires have the time, means and luxury to plant frigging trees they arn’t even going to use. > > Seriously did the empires of the past have, lets be kind, and call them ‘first world problems’? Did fat Romans interrupt plays to scream about Gothophobia? Did Greek lives matter call the most liberal of senators ‘racist’? > > Looks like we need more bread and circuses. If this is satire, its really, _really_ good! A good spoof of the mindset that doesn’t recognize the value of a tree just being a tree. Ah, don’t worry about it, oxygen is _way_ over-rated. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/356 "2017-06-19T17:55:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, I think it’s accurate, but as you noted, it’s because the political will didn’t exist in this country to implement any of the more binding options. If you accept it as fact that Americans prefer to stay in the PA with a 2:1 margin, why do you think it was a good idea for Trump to pull out of the accord as opposed to formalizing it through congress? Surely, the GOP would fall in line in support of the will of the majority of the American people, right? And Trump would thus have managed to pull off something Obama was not able to accomplish. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/357 "2017-06-19T17:56:59Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > … nor have ever been ‘the good guys’. Seems a bit overblown to me. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/358 "2017-06-19T18:53:44Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Which we all agree is harmful to constructive dialog, yes? NEVER!!! 😃 But of course you are correct. As soon as topics must be framed in terms of “sides”, all constructive dialogue comes to a halt. Then it just becomes a matter of scoring points for your “side”. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/359 "2017-06-19T19:40:13Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > On what basis do you declare the Paris accord to be a “treaty”, as opposed to a sole-executive agreement which has been used throughout history? Where did you ever get the idea I ever ‘declared it a treaty’? I did not. It probably _should_ have been a treaty, given the apparent importance and significance of it, but it was not. > [@wolfpup](#): > > 17,300 times since WW II, to be precise, comprising more than 94% of all international agreements. Reagan signed 2,840 executive international agreements, three times as many as Obama. Were you complaining then? It was a bit before my complaining-about-the-President phase of life. What were the most important / significant / impactful of Reagan’s executive international agreements? Were they items on par with INF Treaty or the Paris Accord, or lesser matters? > [@wolfpup](#): > > Why do you keep harping on “Senate ratification” despite the above facts, yet apparently you don’t consider it relevant that Obama’s position has strong popular support, and as noted before, Americans are opposed to the withdrawal by a margin of 2 to 1? The polls that I dug into at the time had what I felt were biased questions, but let me put it this way: if it really enjoyed strong popular support, the kind that drives votes, then the Democrats will win handily in 2018 and again in 2020, and sign us back up for the Paris Accord. If it didn’t, which seems to be the calculus of most Republican elected officials, and President Trump - to the limited extent he may perform political calculus - then they won’t. I suspect that the “strong popular support” you claim is mostly overblown, but perhaps myself and the other Republicans are wrong, and we’ll go down to electoral defeat, and eternal ignominy, in 2018 based off this one decision. I guess we’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112/360 "2017-06-19T19:48:59Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > If you accept it as fact that Americans prefer to stay in the PA with a 2:1 margin, why do you think it was a good idea for Trump to pull out of the accord as opposed to formalizing it through congress? Surely, the GOP would fall in line in support of the will of the majority of the American people, right? And Trump would thus have managed to pull off something Obama was not able to accomplish. IIRC, something like 70% of Republicans approved of the decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. I doubt highly that Trump or the GOP congresscritters are going to undo something supported by 70% of Republicans. However, this isn’t a trait unique to Republicans. [Huge majorities of the populace support voter ID laws](http://www.gallup.com/poll/194741/four-five-americans-support-voter-laws-early-voting.aspx), but Democrats defy the will of the majority and oppose them. By an [almost (but not quite) 2:1 margin Americans are against an assault weapons ban](http://www.gallup.com/poll/196658/support-assault-weapons-ban-record-low.aspx), and yet there are still a significant number of Democrats in Congress that would vote to institute one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-become-bitter-political-enemies/789112.md?page=19)