If it gets struck down, it won’t be because SCOTUS is partisan, it will be because the ACA is bad law.
So how much further do they need to compromise before it is not longer a both sides need to do more situation? Would you ever accept that it is not a both sides need to come together problem?
It will always be two weeks away, until the end of time.
If conservatives really want more bipartisan compromise, they can start right now by persuading their fellow conservatives and Republican lawmakers to back off their partisan efforts to delegitimize and deny the results of the recent election.
I’m all in favor of giving losing candidates a chance to contest election results in accordance with legal procedures and valid evidence, but that’s not the same thing as pandering to desperate flailing tantrums about STOLEN ELECTION!! and ILLEGAL VOTES!!.
Conservatives have a sort of tag-team pattern set up where the self-proclaimed more “moderate” ones let the extremist delusional ones rail about QAnon conspiracies and SOCIALISM! and LIZARD ALIENS! and TRUMP SAVED THE COUNTRY! and so on, and don’t do jack-shit to rein them in or criticize their denial of reality. And then when liberals say that such toxic denial of reality unfits conservatives for participating in democracy, the “moderates” jump in and whine that the liberals aren’t “listening to” or “reaching out to” conservatives enough.
The Lincoln Project is about the only high-profile voice I know of on the Republican side that’s been deliberately pushing back against conservative craziness and irresponsibility in dealing with facts. If you’re a Republican who sincerely wants to encourage good-faith compromise efforts from Democrats, then start calling out your fellow Republicans on their obstructionism and denial.
If we are going to be stuck with a 2 party system, then I don’t think my opinion will ever change. Both sides used to compromise all the time, what changed? Fix that change and mayhap they can again?
Demographics changed. And the Republican party went all in on resentment politics and manipulating the system to maintain minority rule. Republicans are over represented at almost every level of government. They need screw over the left at every turn or they become a permanent minority.
Also, as mentioned already many times, if it is clear that one of the sides is holding fast to that they will accept nothing other than their absolute position, and they have predetermined that whatever is attempted by the other side must fail, the other side is not under the obligation of having to repeatedly asymptotically approach the other side’s position and abandoning their goals while never satisfying anyone.
But what threshold? When polled on the merit of the issue rather than on which political side supports it, a majority of the public supports some gun restrictions, or approves of some sort of health program that minimizes uninsured people; yet I don’t see the Rs in legislatures budging one solitary inch to give quarter in that direction; they accuse it of being “tyranny” and it seems to work for them.
Exactly. If the Rs get the 48% of vote that they need to get the white house and control of Congress, they have a mandate and elections matter. If the Ds get a super majority in Congress and the Presidency, then they need to reach across the aisle for consensus.
When I read your post, I thought of William Blake’s “A Poison Tree”. Not a solution, but a good description of the psychology.
As a Brit, I have tried so hard to listen to Brexiters explain why the UK needs to leave the EU and what benefits will come from it.
It always devolves into complete bullshit.
I don’t know how to compromise on bullshit.
Furthermore I have seen lectures by rightists and moderates that we need to ‘listen’ to Brexiters. But nobody ever tells them to listen to Remainers. Why is that?
The same reason nobody tells a baby to clean up after itself. What’s the point?
My guess is that the Brexiters, if they are anything resembling the Magas here, have as one of their core characteristics the belief that no one listens to them. They are poorer, less educated, less traveled, less cosmopolitan, less comfortable with the diversity of ideas and ways of being, than the part of the culture that writes, publishes, and makes policy.
They try to emulate the style of the listened-to class, with its careful oratory, its polished essays, its scientific research and journalistic ethics. But they are fighting for something emotional and personal. They are trying to make a case for themselves using the tools of the ruling intellectual class, and they sound like idiots, except to each other.
A core rule of communication is, when someone is shouting the same thing over and over, it’s because they believe you are not listening with understanding. The shouting is a sign of frustration.
There is a qualitative difference between listening to understand, and political compromise. They exist on different planes, in a way. We always want to jump into the solutions part of talking, but that doesn’t work when nobody has really understood what the other side is feeling. Emotions don’t require agreement! They just require empathy. Empathy is not agreement!
And whining about how stupid, intransigent, and downright evil the other side is, while satisfying in its way, does absolutely nothing to bridge the abyss we are all looking into.
Broadly true, although many I have encountered are among the better achievers from my circle, people I knew from school who have decent jobs and seem generally pretty content. They have reasonable views on other things but on Brexit they just have a complete black hole of unreason.
One in particular I’m baffled by, he fixates on the crank views of a few out-there economists who insist Brexit will be wonderful, the Professor Minford types, but when I point out he’s misquoting or ignoring whole chunks of what he says, let alone ignoring the overwhelming consensus of nearly all credible economists, he calls me arrogant for trying to discredit Minford.
They use arrogant as an attack, as it puts you on the defensive and they don’t have to defend their unreason, not thinking that they’re the arrogant ones.
It is hard to empathize with someone’s feeling that I am helping a cabal of Satanistic child killers. It is also hard to empathize with someone who thinks people I care about should have their rights stripped because it is icky/against their religion.
If we talking about allocate federal spending I could empathize with people who live in areas organized around corn or coal, even if I disagreed with them. But even if the general cause of discontent is economic disenfranchisement, that is not what the Trump base is screaming about. That is not what they are saying.
The idea that liberals are satanists is not a feeling. Nor is what should happen to them. Those are thoughts. Thoughts are not feelings. Anger is a feeling. Despair is a feeling. Everyone is capable of being angry, or despairing. Empathy is for emotions, not beliefs, ideas, thoughts, plans, decisions, or any of that. Just emotions. You do not have to agree with the rationale attached to the emotion. In this case it would be highly unlikely.
One of the, if not the biggest, barriers to compassion and understanding is just this simple concept that is yet so very difficult to grasp: empathy is for feelings only. Empathy is not agreement. Empathy can happen in the total absence of agreement. Empathy can happen even when the person is angry at you, for something you didn’t do, would never do.
Of course it is a lot harder, than if, say, your friend’s mom died and you remember just how you felt when your own mom died. But it is neither impossible nor does it in any way involve compromising your own values or supporting theirs.
This is where I did my training: Center For Nonviolent Communication.
I am by nature very crabby and judgemental, as so amply demonstrated by many posts on this board. This stuff is not bogus, believe me.
What you’re asking people to do is forget everything that happened yesterday, last month, last year. You’re saying that we should show empathy for Trump supporters who are grieving their electoral loss despite the fact that they showed zero empathy after having won the 2016 election. Okay. Fine. Say we do that. I can fake sincerity with the best of 'em.
What’s the next step? How do we show them we care about their feelings with regards to disappearing manufacturing and mining jobs? How do we show them we care about their feelings with regards to immigration policies? How about abortion rights? Healthcare policy? Environmental policy?
Perhaps those are far too lofty issues to start. Let’s find a way to show them empathy when it comes to this pandemic and the basic science of social distancing and mask wearing. I propose we do the following: When we’re out in the country, specifically in Trump counties, let’s not wear our masks to show them we stand in solidarity with their “rise up!” movement. We don’t need to talk politics or progressive social policies. All we need to do is show up and go among them and not wear masks or social distance. Seems to me, this would be the most direct and the most expedient way of showing them that we stand in solidarity with them, not just by our words but through our actions. Who’s with me?
Thoughts can drive feelings just as feelings can drive thoughts, no ?
So … how does one even take the very first step in trying to untangle the Gordian knot of feelings (eg, anger, insecurity, and fear) that comes – at least in large part – from gorging on a steady diet of totally false, absolutely corrosive propaganda all day long ?
I also doubt that we can safely separate the feelings that result from the demagoguery from the feelings that make one vulnerable to it in the first place.
So … in all sincerity … how does one start this process ?
Well as a white man when “THEY” meaning the schools, media, colleges, politicians, etc… always portray me as the bad guy and they expect me to check my “white privilege” when down deep you dont see a reason to apologize, it gets frustrating. My family immigrated here after 1880 and we never owned a slave, never took land from an indian, and as far as I know always worked hard, earned everything we had, and treated others fairly.
But “they” say I’m the bad guy? That my son doesnt deserve a job because he also is a white male?
So when democrats put up a candidate and say I should vote for them because… why? Their gender? Their race? Their sexual identity? Hell no!