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Lot of posts about politics this week. I get really sad regarding the framing of “political differences” these days as this weird phenomenon that’s happening beyond anyone’s understanding or control.
One side is really violent and uninterested (generally) in debate, or even democracy. One side isn’t. I dunno why we’re so surprised there’s conflict here. I have never treated my “Trumpist” family the way they treat me, and I have never attacked someone in public or vandalized their property for their political leanings. I feel bad for Betty Little because the advice “just don’t talk about it,” is a bit…well, shows me she doesn’t get it, willfully or not.
We don’t hate you or anyone for your party affiliations, Betty. Your party has a bunch of guns literally pointed at us and democracy. If you’re expecting a friendly conversation when Republicans have that posture, I think you need to reset expectations. Some Republicans seem pretty willful in their misunderstanding that when their brand is tarnished by some, they’re ALL associated with “space lasers” from there. (Especially when so many go out of their way to defend such people!) That’s how brand associations work. You gotta work extra hard to disassociate yourself, and “not talking about it” ain’t a winning strategy.
“Lot of posts about politics this week. I get really sad regarding the framing of “political differences” these days as this weird phenomenon that’s happening beyond anyone’s understanding or control.” ……but let me add to it with my one-sided, view and point my finger at the other side from my pre-judged perceptions because, after all, my view is the only view that is acceptable in my mind and any differing view is simply a “willfull misunderstanding” of what I think. But if you disassociate from that party I have labeled, then we can have a friendly conversation. After all, such people are tarnished because they are not informed…like me!
That is exactly how you sound, Vanessa, to anyone with an opposing political stance when you weave your passive aggressive accusations subtly in every sentence, elevating your opinions and regarding differing views as “violent or disinterested” with those whom disagree with your ideology. You are not interested in conversation. You are not sincerely looking for common ground and honest debate, as you claim. You want CONVERSION, not conversation!
And if you think there are no ” tarnished” players on your own side then YOU are more out of touch with reality than you fail to acknowledge. Maybe you should focus on removing those “tarnished” players first from your own party, before you go pointing the finger at the “other” party, because there are plenty of them there as well, and more starting to rear their ugly heads all over the place. (In case you missed these inconvenient facts, just this past week: Cuomo’s degrading actions, the burning riots of the capital in Portland, 1000s of migrant children at border in the “same cages” but with even more kids, etc) Oh, but wait- those violent, intolerant Republicans really get me sad..
One party had members vote to overthrow the will of the people and not certify the 100% legitimate election of the President of the USA. One party encouraged a violent mob that attacked the capitol and tried to overthrow the election. One party is currently trying to pass numerous laws in various states explicitly designed to prevent people from voting who support the other party. Frankly, those actions are un-American.
Speaking of un-American, the one party that actually tried to overthrow a legitimately elected President used made up dossiers and illegal warrants to phony up charges for an impeachment that went nowhere. They wasted 4 years of legislation for that lofty political ‘goal’. I think we all know what party that was. As for encouraging violent mobs, I think we also know which party had the country in flames all summer long with riots that caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private damages. Too, if you think calling for voters to be legally registered and prove who they are when they vote, then guilty as charged. If you’re talking about governors who caused thousands of deaths by sending COVID sufferers back to nursing homes to infect their fellow ‘seasoned citizens’ when isolation wards were made available to them, I think we in New York know what party he belongs to. It’s unbelievable how selective your memory is.
More gaslighting and false equivalency. The impeachment went nowhere because McConnell and the senate r’s are too deep in the cult. Anyone else who did half of trumps misdeeds would have been convicted by Mitch and the boys. Y’all tried to throw Clinton out of office for lying about an affair while trump bribed the Ukrainian president for personal gain and incited an armed insurrection on the us Congress! I guess in your mind those are equal things LOL.
What else…
500,000+ die on trumps watch with 40% avoidable from trumps inaction and hoax conspiracies and you’re complaining about nursing homes. Whatever’s politically expedient I guess.
Armed insurrection? Per the FBI, no firearms were confiscated at the Senate that day. Last I knew, you don’t overthrow a gummint without firearms. Was the Senate trespassing a bad thing? You bet. It was a terrible, dark stain on what had been a peaceful protest. Was it as bad as the rioting, looting, destruction and death that Antifa and BLM did in the summer and fall of 2020? No way.
You like to say the impeachment was OK, even though it was based on lies, but you also like to say the verdiict by the Senate was tainted. You can’t have it both ways. If the proof were there, my weak kneeded Republican Senators would have voted in a heartbeat to convict.
You’re saying President Trump gained from Ukraine dealings?? SERIOUSLY?? When Hunter was in bed with the Ukrainians AND the Chinese and spoke of ‘the big guy’ in his dealngs, you’re trying to turn it around on President Trump? Classic.
President Trump stopped travel from China in Jan 2020, to the howls of disbelief from D’s. And, you have a vaccine in record time, thanks to him. You’re welcome. The failure to get that vaccine distributed into people’s arms is Biden’s fault. No thanks needed there.
You sir, are in serious denial about everything!
P.S. Bill Clinton was not charged with having sex in the Oval Office while keeping the Prime Minister of Pakistan waiting, which he did. He was charged with Perjury to a Grand Jury and obstruction of justice. Like Richard Nixon before him, he found out that it’s not the act gets you in trouble, it’s the coverup.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to the beach. Have a great day!
JohnL,
Impeachment is a LEGAL process used to protect our type of government against tyrants and corruption. It is not an “overthrow” of an administration as in the coup started even before election day to overturn a fair election. Attempts to conflate the two is not an argument of any sort. Impeachment only works if our elected officials have enough spine to stand up to tyranny, corruption, and a non-stop flood of lies.
As we have seen, our elected officials are more concerned about being re-elected to their comfortable positions than carrying out their oaths of office. Probably no way to avoid this without short term limits and eliminating corporate influence.
Like I said to Scott above, if there had been any actual proof of any misdeeds, my weak kneed Republican Senators would not have hesitated for an instant to convict. Like it or not, there wasn’t any proof.
I am not sure what prompted her post, but I think Vanessa has a valid point. Hard to see clearly with blinders. Not going to be much improvement until we can agree on what is the truth.
Dang I am surprised I got responses here. I commented because this week a lot of (well, both state senators) were in the news basically wondering, in the year of our lord 2021, “why can’t we be friends?”
The Jan 6th riot is a big example, but it isn’t the only one. We’ve got the 3 percenters leak cited here (haven’t heard of those folks being interested in peaceful dialog, exactly), and then the article of “personal being political” etc. that’s what prompted me to opine, to answer your question.
The thing is, we CAN be friends, but not on a basis of lies. If Republicans wanted to actually talk to me, we could find a lot of common ground (no Cuomo, absolutely no cages), or we could even talk about, for example, what happened in Seattle over the summer, (because in her “what about this” comment I believe that this event is what ADKResident is referring to), and how it’s a complete lie that the CHAZ had anything remotely to do with Democrats. Local democrats were all panicked at that protest and in fact, this event even proves my point because it’s unconfirmed but quite likely that white supremacists shot people there!
There are an extremely, extremely small number of militant anarchists in this country. None of them are part of either major party. I have had Republicans attempt to refer to them all the time, but always with the Trumpist tactic of blaming me for them rather than attempting to understand why they exist. (Spoiler alert: none of us are responsible for them. They don’t like anyone to the right of them, definitely including me!) But because of them, according to Republicans, all Democrats don’t deserve political rights and deserve their right to vote taken away by violent means. That’s what January 6th meant. That’s always been Trumps message. The 6th was just the day he lost the ability to use the illusion that he was interested in democracy.
So yeah…that’s why it’s gonna be hard to have a conversation. Until we agree on basic truth, I am not confident the situation will change.
Not to quibble Dana, but I think there is a difference between what each of us perceives to be the “truth” and fact based reality. I would be very happy in a world where you and I could maintain our own truth or perspective so long as we acknowledged that which is – water is wet, the earth is round, etc. How we have collectively lost the ability to do that is beyond me.
I am a simple person. In my simple vocabulary, Truth=Fact. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we agreed on both?
I shouldn’t have commented the way I did because I am not arguing with you. I agree that simpler would be better. My point is this: My wife and I could live through the exact same argument and walk away from it with two completely different understandings as to what happened. Each of us would be convinced that what we thought was true. What I am no longer going to do is entertain folks who disregard reality. If somebody honestly thinks the world is flat or that the climate isn’t changing, or that space lasers / magical changing voting machines exist, etc I have no interest in talking to them. I don’t care what they think at this point. What I am interested in, is the middle ground – the possibility that my perspective differs from yours but that we might be able to work together to find a common good. For better or for worse, I still hold out hope that’s possible.
It isn’t simple people who have perverted the meaning of the words – it is politicians and media “personalities” that have created false, alternative universes that have no basis in fact. Until we amend our thoughts on free speech to include negative consequences for creating and spreading bald-faced lies, our way of life will remain dubious at best. After all, isn’t this typically the basis for war?
A meta comment here: in the words of the great Mr. Joel, I’d like to remind us all here that “we didn’t start the fire!”
I commented on this post because it featured articles that report on the thoughts of state leadership. Those folks have a unique, tax payer funded job where for better or worse, they DO “start the fires,” and the rest of us suffer the consequences.
It’s absolutely correct that we’re in a unique time in history where the idea of objective truth is fundamentally in danger. It’s the internet’s “fault,” not ours, but it’s the responsibility of leadership to help us navigate that tough world.
To this end, the inability of one side to acknowledge that their official party stance is at odds with democracy (to put it nicely) is really concerning. That’s the biggest problem, not that Betty Little’s nieces and nephews debate her at the dinner table, or etc. The lies that continue to be perpetuated about the 2020 election will torpedo the American experiment. We have posters on this thread perpetuating them. I actually do not harbor an iota of personal malice to those people – but they are putting us all in danger.
I don’t care what “side” anyone is on – if you have one side that convinces people through whatever means that it’s in their interest to violently endanger democracy, we’re ALL in real trouble. Rather than pretending these issues don’t exist, we need to talk them out, oftentimes uncomfortably, or the situation is just gonna get worse.