That’s because the US left has had to put up with Republican rhetoric so long that they’ve become desensitized and complacent.
I saw Reagan’s campaign ads in 1980: ie “This is how many ICBMs the Soviets have. This is how many ICBMs we have. This is how many tanks the Soviets have. This is how many tanks we have. Vote Republican if you don’t actively hate America and want it to be destroyed”.
I also saw the “you’re either with us or you’re against us” rubbish that the Bush Administration came out with in the wake of 9/11 and the lead up to the 2004 election.
You have a point that things haven’t really gotten worse. But from my (admittedly non-American) perspective, it’s quite clearly only the US Right that continually calls their domestic political opponents traitors who want to destroy their country.
Dubya had an approval rating of 90% in the weeks after 9/11.
IMHO, If 9/11 had happened under a Democratic POTUS the GOP would have been calling for impeachment by the 20th of September at the very latest.
Compare that to the filibuster by Wendy Davis and then the outcry by the gallery when the filibuster failed, which delayed the vote long enough to (temporarily) prevent it. Or the largely leftist Occupy movement. Of the bloviating by blowhards like Al Sharpton or Cindy Sheehan. I don’t see any party having a monopoly on screaming.
Good point. I don’t think the public is more polarized than then, but I do believe the politicians are.
However, the data in the OP suggests that I’m wrong about that, since it’s approval ratings by the people, not the politicians. Perhaps in the 60’s, the numbers of dissidents was smaller but their vehemence was greater.
I believe that polarization is a natural tendency built into the American political system, starting from day 1 (the Constitution). In US politics, you get what you want by banding together with those most like you. There’s no room for a middle. There’s no mechanism to encourage a coalition government of multiple parties. Natural forces in the system produce two strong parties, with the rest in the weeds.
That said, as someone who’s voted for more R’s than D’s in my life (say, 3:2 ratio), it sure does seem to me that the R’s are more visceral in their attacks, a bigger polarizing force lately. When I tune into NPR, there’s a distinct liberal bias, but it’s fairly subtle. When I watch Fox News station, I see them repeatedly hit the “FEAR” and “ANGER” buttons. I’m not particularly well-informed politically, but that’s how it looks from where I sit.
America never has, nor ever will, mandate that Christianity be embraced as a state religion-thereby making it a “Christian Nation.” Moreover, that would make her a Theocracy, not a Democratic Republic.
“This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate’s history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.”
Why would anyone dissent from acknowledging that America is not a nation that has a State mandated faith - be it Christianity or any other religion?
To think that this particular treaty -Treaty of Tripoli - could be referring to anything other than an official state religion does not comport with America’s own Constitutional Amendments.
"The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a wall of separation between church and state.”
Empirical records show quite the contrary. Moreover, some of our Founders were even ministers and clergymen from various Christian Sects.
The “separation of church and state” quote was in a letter to the Danbury Baptists Church, not the US Constitution.
That SCOTUS actually allowed a Jefferson letter to a baptist church to be given constitutional precedence was shameful.
So, over a hundred Republican filibusters compared to one Democratic one. A situation in the U.S. Senate where the filibuster is so commonplace that all questions need a supermajority versus a state legislature where the filibuster is so rare that it actually makes national news. This comparison doesn’t help you.
The OWS movement is instructive. Leftwing protesters are marginalized and die on the vine. Rightwing protesters OTOH such as the Tea Party are embraced by the Republican Party and become an essential part of their coalition. Truthers are mocked by Democrats. Birthers are coddled by Republicans. Hell, GOP candidates are so deep into the crazy vote that they have to hedge on basic science questions like evolution.
Punditry is another example. There certainly are liberal pundits but none that wield the type of power that Rush Limbaugh does. Rachel Maddow or Paul Krugman can’t make or break Democrats. If Rush goes on the air calling for a primary challenge to a Republican candidate they are in trouble.
FAIL. Wendy Davis was taking a principled stand against an oppressive bill. Republicans filibuster each and every thing that comes up in the Senate. Wendy Davis had to stand for hours on end without even being allowed to go to the bathroom. Senate Republicans can phone in their filibusters.
OWS was a genuine grass roots effort. Without corporate/political backing, it fades into history. The Tea Party was an astroturf movement bankrolled by political interests and has wound up taking over a political party.
The Wall Street Republicans pretty much just paid lip service to the right wing social Republicans, but post Tea Party the social conservatives have the Wall Street boys by the short hairs. It’s toe the ideological line or go home. I’d say that we now have different interest groups ruling the roost now and the exploitees have become the exploited.
You think Davis is the only Democrat who used the filibuster? The problem as I see it is that since you’re likely to agree with a Democrat who filibusters you don’t really notice it but when a Republican filibusters you sit up an take notice.
Environmental movements like Greenpeace aren’t marginalized and they are a large reason we don’t have safer, cleaner nuclear power. The anti-vax movement is largely composed of what I would consider leftists. There are plenty more.
Suddenly there are more oppressive bills in the last few years than the entire history of Congress combined?
So literally you could have Republicans engaging in some sort of partisan behavior at a ratio of 100:1, and to that you say “you only see a difference because you’re biased!”
Your position is absurd. No amount of evidence could be presented to you that the Republicans are actually acting in a negative way because you have a philosophical position that no matter what they do, if you think negatively of republican actions, that’s just your own bias at work. This is an insane position. It ignores reality. It is also supremely ironic - you think you’re some sort of bastion of objectivity that sees how biased the other side is and you’re above it all when in reality your behavior is so partisan that you unable to accept reality.
ISTM what we have here is a political environment resembling the kind of civil war where each side is so sure it is right that it does not believe the other side even has any business fighting back, and it’s a crime if they do.
Right, which is why the democrats are bending backwards over and over again to accept republican input into their bills (remember the 200+ changes due to republican suggestion to the ACA?) which the republicans then stonewall them on. All sides are always equally guilty of everything, always.
Homonyms like “their” and “there” or “break” and “brake” cause trouble, but at least they’re spelled differently.
Deeg seems to have conflated two homonyms. Wendy Davis conducted a filibuster in the tradition of the Jimmy Stewart character in Mr. Smith goes to Washington:
The obstacles placed by Texas Republicans against Ms. Davis’ filibuster were disgusting. Latest news: they want to sue her to reimburse the state for special sessions.
Deeg conflated this word with a word used in the post he responded to, a word too new to be in dictionaries. It refers to the ability of the Senate GOP to insist that any bill be voted as a cloture bill, with a 3/5 majority required. In this procedure, none of the naysayers need even stand up, let alone be subjected to the humiliation Ms. Davis was subjected to.
I think we should excuse Deeg. Homonyms are confusing.
Likewise, no amount of evidence could get you to understand how biased you are. I’ve come up with, I think, reasonable counters to the examples where the Republicans are thought to be worse. I recall Democrats threatening to filibuster to block some GWB nominees, which was highly unusual. To some Davis’ filibuster was justice while Republican filibusters are obstruction; that seems biased to me.
Awesome salient point. I’m a software engineer and I’m used to my IDE correcting my spelling.