The purpose of this thread is to serve as a holding facility, or cesspool, for disturbingly moderate posts, false equivalences, and claims that #bothsides do it despite one side being vastly more to blame than the other.
Through this thread, and after donning our gas masks and applying copious amounts of disinfectant to our rubber gloves, it is hoped that we may begin to scrub away the gooey patina of ossified moderation that gradually comes to form a thin, unappetizing greenish glaze upon our political dialogue. After sufficiently prolonged and diligent scrubbing and sanitization, we may hope to one day - perhaps in the distant future - emerge cleansed and purified of that gooey patina of moderation, guided instead by coherent principles, clear foundations, and righteous ideals.
If slightly longer thread titles were allowed, this thread would be titled, "The Calthrina Cantina and Cesspool For Moderate Posts, False Equivalencies, and #Bothsides." Unfortunately, in conserving character count, we had to burn the "Moderate Posts" to save the "Cesspool." Probably better to burn the Moderate Posts than the Cesspool, for the sake of avoiding the malodorous stench.I will now commence this great enterprise.
But I cannot do it alone. [[FirstName]]: will you join me today with a contribution of one post to polish our polluted polity?More partisanship and more bickering only makes things worse. I'm not saying that a party should always yield to its opponents, but I don't think it's necessary to use underhanded tactics that widen the ideological divide and drive down turnout.
Hard disagree. The Republican Party got over this decades ago: "A choice, not an echo."
Since then, Democrats have suffered defeat after defeat, from Reagan's landslide, to the Gingrich-Hastert Congresses, to the Bush presidency, to the Tea Party, and now Donald Trump.
Even when Democrats win elections, they fail to leverage that power into policy victories. Look at what Obama campaigned on in 2008: Rolling back the Bush tax cuts. Bringing troops home. Making health care affordable. Getting the national security state under control. Renegotiating NAFTA. Making government accountable.
What happened? He was lucky to barely win re-election in 2012, when Republicans nominated someone so repellent to voters that Democrats were able to make the campaign about the challenger, not the incumbent.
About the only durable policy gain that Democrats made during the Obama presidency was one that he had been too politically timid to campaign on. Elected officials weren't even the prime actors. Yikes.
Again, I'm not saying that Democrats should yield all to their opponents. But some people on here seem to think that Democrats should debase themselves to the level of Republicans, in the sense of engaging in mudslinging and nasty, underhanded partisan tactics.
