Tag: polarization

DEMOCRACY DIES IN THE GREAT PARTY DIVIDE

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Dean Philips has been told he should not run for the presidency because he takes votes from Biden. Same for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. No doubt the same for Cornel West and the Green Party candidate. The same will be “explained” to the No Labels candidate (if and when). Independents and moderates who state they will not vote for either Biden nor Trump are being told, alternatively, depending on whether they are getting advice from a Democrat or a Republican, that not voting for Biden is a vote for Trump, or not voting for Trump is a vote for Biden. The rationale for this voting strategy is that the other guy is so bad that he is an existential threat to democracy. But the real existential threat to democracy is the elimination of choice in a free society.

Free speech is infringed upon when people on either side of the great party divide think that what someone on the other side says is all lies, is dangerous and should be suppressed. Also, the Not-So-Mainstream Media edits and smothers content, as does social media, because what they don’t like is “dangerous.” None of this passes constitutional muster. Many Democrats suffer from a bad case of replacement racism and some Republicans wish to reconstruct the first amendment to mandate religion as part of government. Not good for democracy but policy has become the new religion and ideology has become theology. Let the sinners be damned and thrown to the scrap heap of democracy. But whatever happens, don’t let them vote.

This is party driven. Republicans and Democrats have fostered a dangerous age of polarization, and the fallout has covered the nation in an anti-democratic toxicity that is poisoning the ability of the electoral system to provide fair outcomes and reasonable office holders. The key variable is power, not useful policy, and certainly not good government.

POLITICS DU JOUR – PART II

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.