(06-09-2016, 11:33 PM)taramarie Wrote:(06-09-2016, 11:14 PM)radind Wrote:(06-09-2016, 07:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You make some good points, Radind. But just saying "we have a different perspective" does not change the facts; in this case for example, about which candidate is stirring up violence.
But, the issue for me is who is actually conducting the violence. It still appears to me that most of the actual violence is coming from some opposed to Trump.
From what i can see Trump is a candidate who is stirring up violence and some voters both sides are both becoming more violent. I do not know where most of it is coming from. But it is coming from both sides. They are frustrated. I can understand that. It just makes it worse though.
Polarization in American political life practically ensures that one side gets everything available through politics and that the other gets practically nothing even in a 51-49 split of power. Gerrymandering and the rise of donor-based funding as the foundation of power have debased the concept of government representing constituents. The legislative system now represents economic power far better than it represents voters. Compromise no longer exists on any economic issue. Such practically ensures mass frustration with the political order.
Whether democracy survives the next decade is much in doubt in America. Democracy is effectively dead in some state legislatures in which some Parties have majorities that may never be dislodged. That is how the inchoate democracy died in the Russian Federation and how our democracy can die, too.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.