It’s easy to get this confused. What happened was that there was no evidence that the Republicans supported the things they claimed that they did, or any evidence for anything else that they claimed.
2016 when the Democrats lost their shit and started showing how childish they are.
Yes.
At least we haven’t had any recent shooting contests between a Vice President and a former Secretary of the Treasury.
I question respondents who identify remote incidents as proof that politics has always been nasty. None of the examples stated yet has suggested (to me at least) a prolonged period of nastiness lasting over a decade or more, anywhere near the situation these past 2-3 decades, over multiple successive presidencies/Congresses.
I imagine, however, that there were likely some pretty longstanding divisions in the decades before and after the Civil War. I do not know enough history to compare the political climate then to now.
Dog-whistles became common as a part of the Southern Strategy of the Republicans in the Nixon era. Northern Democrats’ decisions to support civil rights caused dissatisfaction with many southern racists. Republicans wouldn’t directly court the racists, so instead used certain phrases to subtly indicate acceptance of policies favored by racists.The phrases weren’t objectionable in and by themselves, but combined with the promotion of the policies, the message got through. It took a generation for racists take refuge with the Republicans.
“Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?”
“Gone to the White House, ha ha ha”
solost: “But in the modern era, there was Nixon’s “dirty tricks” campaign against Democrats.”
Let’s give proper credit to Dick Tuck.
http://wwww.museumofhoaxes.com/tuck.html
Nasty politics is personified for me by the invective and near-violence back around 1900 when Speaker Tom Reed overthrew the “silent quorum” that was stifling legislation, and opposition Democrats threatened to mob him at the Speaker’s platform (this was back when Republicans stood for progressivism). You don’t see Congressmen ominously sharpening Bowie knives at their desks these days.
True, social media has made it lots easier for politicians and their supporters to say stupid, vicious things.
I agree that that change has more of an impact that is often given credit.
It was derided as “pork barrel politics”, and condemned as a waste of taxpayer money.
What it actually was was the grease that kept things running. It’s not a coincidence that there is a large wealth transfer from blue states to red. The blue states valued social progress, and the red states needed jobs.
The amount that of the budget that this actually took up was pretty minuscule, and did quite a bit to get congresspeople to work across the aisle.
The cynical side of me feels that earmarks were not removed due to their cost, but specifically to make it harder to get things done in congress.
To be fair, losing to someone like Trump is quite hard to stomach. I don’t think Republicans would have taken losing to a Democratic version of Trump any better.
But the phenomenon known as “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) is indeed a thing for some people, even if the term is overused by the right. Check out this woman screeching like a bird, for instance.
Worse than that, it eliminated the sort of behind closed doors horse trading/ quid pro quo stuff that actually lets politicians get actual work done. The theory was that this sort of thing was inherently corrupt, but in practice, it was the lubricant that greased the gears of the Federal government. This is the “why is there a line in the bill for defense spending giving money to Oregon for a duck sanctuary” kind of thing that people used to decry.
So now, it’s all just straight votes, and there’s no incentive to really cooperate- it’s not like they can throw you a bone, or anything else in exchange for your cooperation or for modifying a bill, etc… And all legislators have to show for their efforts is their voting record for or against certain bills, all of which are written much more partisan than ever before.
Sounds interesting. Maybe someone should make a musical about it…
Yeah, it was. Hell, some of the early political infighting was even nastier than it is today. It’s gone through times where it’s relatively quiet and relatively united, but mainly US politics has always been a contentious quagmire of bickering parties and, often, factions within parties striving for dominance. It’s easy to look at what’s happening today and say that things are the worst they have ever been, and honestly it is really bad right now with the parties so in contention and unwilling to even consider compromise, as well as the various political infighting within the parties factions, but it’s really not any worse than it’s ever been and we’ve actually had worse in the past.
If we only go back to the 80’s, I’d have to say that, yeah, it’s more contentious now than at any earlier time, though only by degree. I think that the real rancor started with Carter, ramped up with Reagan, but it was Clinton and Bush II that REALLY started the trend we see continuing now, and that Obama and Trump have pushed things to the breaking point, politically. You can see a progression as the party opposed to the president digs in it’s heels more and more while they don’t have the presidency, so as it moves from Democrat to Republican then back to Democrat and now to Republican the hardliners in each party further entrench and refuse to compromise. I don’t see this trend breaking this time either, as we swing back from Republican to a Democrat this year, in fact I expect this to be another raising of the bar. Unless this Covid crisis is bad enough to finally bring us together and bring our politics back to sanity…or we get some other black swan type event that shocks the country and brings us back together both as a people and politically. It’s going to take something like that, or the complete collapse of one of the parties credibility (which could happen) to change the current trajectory, IMHO. As it has in the past when this same thing happened.
There are countries where legislators punch, slap, shove, throw water balloons, bottles, at each other, etc.
Let’s just say…whatever goes on in U.S. politics today is utterly mild by comparison. You’ll never see Yoho and Ocasio-Cortez throwing chairs at each other during a Congressional session.
If ever there was an example of the exception proving the rule…This and Burr-Hamilton is pretty much all the US has to demonstrate personal political violence over the last 240 years.
Yes but that was well over a century ago. I’m talking about today.
Today ain’t over yet so I’ll get back to your if anything happens later, but just 3 years ago a member of the US House of Representatives body slammed a reporter.
I thought we were talking about the US as a whole, as it is asking when the politics got so nasty.
I have long been of the opinion that we started an argument 250ish years ago. That argument has gone through different levels of civility, but it has always been a matter of severe disagreement on certain policies and roles of govt.
I do believe that that argument is healthy, and that some level of vitriol and even moderate amounts of petty violence are to be accepted.
What terrifies me is when that argument ends. If either side ever actually wins the argument, democracy loses.
Well, there was that Civil War thing …
Agree. Another thing that worries me is the death of the “I object to what you say but I will defend your right to say it” sentiment, or the “I don’t agree but I understand where you’re coming from”.
Increasingly, we’re becoming a nation that not only doesn’t understand why or how the other side behaves the way it does, but isn’t even interested in learning or finding out. That is also a death spiral for democracy.
Or taking the tack that the other side is the enemy, and that their beliefs run counter to all you hold dear, and that they must be resisted at all costs.
This applies on both sides of the aisle, FWIW. Most conservatives do have some useful points to make, especially w.r.t. the role of government in righting social wrongs. Is it automatically and necessarily the government’s job or problem to solve social problems? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s not as clear-cut as some on the left would have you believe, and that disagreeing with that also doesn’t automatically make you wrong. Similarly, not being a staunch law-and-order type doesn’t mean that you want to coddle criminals and have the country overrun with illegal aliens either. You just may think that it’s a matter of prioritization, and that local cops have more important stuff to do than enforce the Federal government’s immigration laws.
But the politicians on both sides would have you believe the opposite and demonize anyone who doesn’t toe the party line on issues.