The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(01-20-2020, 01:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Several "alternative" media offer the conservative alternate reality.  Fox.  Breitbart.  Etc...  If that is the style of your primary source, you end up like Classic.  There are styles of telling lies that many have to learn and recognize.  There are tricks to fact checking quickly that people need these days.  Unfortunately, some find it convenient to live in the cocoon.  Trump may have over used lies enough that people will learn.  I suspect this learning will be part of the upcoming culture change, self defense if you will.  Lying has just be overdone recently.  Eventually those that have been lied to will wake up.

I would love to believe that honesty and forthright behavior will win out, but there is no guarantee that's true.   I do believe that it is true in the long run, but we know what John Maynard Keynes had to say about that.  In their book Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes make the argument that the Presidency is subject to change, has been changed in the past by other Presidents, and Donald Trump may be doing it again.  Their argument seems to be strong if not overwhelming.  

Bob Butler 54 Wrote:But I may be optimistic.  Conservatives have reasons for keeping the lies.  I recently bumped into a web page that talked about baby killing and gun theft.  The title asked the pertinent question.  Who do you vote for if you cannot stomach Trump?  The Establishment Republicans are too tightly tied to the elites, and thus have already been rejected by the Tea Party.  The liberal one size fits all ethics is unthinkable for some many.  It takes the rare bird like Palin or Trump to lie or believe enough to spin the cocoon.

There is real anger out in the world, and some of it is justified, if a bit overblown.  The real problem with anger-driven politics: it lacks rationale.  Thinking and emotion are not great bedfellows.

Bob Butler 54 Wrote:I might suggest an almost unheard of idea of compromising, but I fear a lot of people would find it hard.

I don't think compromise is even possible today.  We've arrived at a point where A needs to win and B needs to be crushed.  Assign values to A and B as you will.