American democracy has ground to a halt.

[Badger]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

Agree. But when it's these "activists" and parties, who decide everything, results are hardly normal. After all - theoretically parties must reflect thoughts and desires of the people. For US liberals Democratic party more or less does that (though even among liberal-leaning people not all will support "bold progressism" in every detail), the same - for conservatives and Republican party. But for other? Zero.

The problem with this viewpoint is that most voters dont have desires. They are essentially lemmings who's viewpoints are dictated by their identity and/or partisanship. Read this article for a better explanation.

We've all seen how Republican voters change positions on a whim just as long as Trump tells them to. Keep in mind that more ''informed'' voters are actually the biggest hacks of all. They are smart enough to know they are being hacks so they hide behind well written talking points. These are like the Trump supporters of Atlas who routinely change their mind when Trump does and just make up the reasoning as they go along.

That article is as convincing as it is true and depressing.

It's similar to what I've said previously, that the worst thing about Trump is that under him there is now absolutely no bottom to the Republican party's standards. Trump is a god-awful human being in every single aspect, and what's more it pervades every aspect of his presidency. But like good little Lemmings, instead of ever deciding G Trump is bad this needs to change, Republicans have decided on mass that whole scale corruption, attempting treason of the highest order, and blatantly try to undermine the most basic values of democracy are all more than acceptable if it is offered by someone taking the war to liberals.