Trump Biden II – Old School Politics and Political Narcissism on Steroids

Our current political environment is a mess.  We have retrogressed from name calling to back-stabbing to criminalizing and finally to demonizing.  The other side is always an existential threat to democracy. Formerly taboo subjects are normalized: politicians going after each other’s spouses and children, public officials being confronted in public, threatened and even attacked. Some have been shot at and hit.

The two ends of the political spectrum are separated by a vast ideological chasm. The term polarization doesn’t begin to describe how far apart Liberals and Conservatives are.  Most polarization models use party line votes in Congress to graphically depicts the centroids (concentrations) and the crossovers, but the nowadays separation is total.  Moderates in both parties may approach, but do not cross, the center line.  And the language is far worse. The word civility seems to exist in another rhetorical galaxy as we are barraged daily day with a non-stop, can-you-top-this exercise in psychotic superlatives.  It’s a fight to the death with no margin for leniency, let alone forgiveness.  Does it ever end?

Exacerbating all this is the corrupt leadership of current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.  President Biden is that rare leader that has created more problems than he has solved.  His catch-phrase theme should be the Build Back Breakdown where policy does more harm than good and puts The Big Squeeze on the middle class and working poor.  Democrats claim that President Biden and Vice President Harris ae doing such a great job but frankly Andrew Johnson and nobody was a better leadership team.

So the struggle continues, even as President Trump announces a bid for another term, to the chagrin of most.  Problems will not get solved, perhaps not in this era, not until some dramatic event brings what’s left of us back to our senses. That is unfortunate but may be the moment we have to endure.