It is because we haven’t achieved consensus on these issues or there is a faction that believes they can get a better deal by holding out and continuing to fight.
It’s more futile than this, my parents are big Trumpers. My father watches a ton of Fox News and rants about how immigrants are flooding the cities. When shown data and statistics and pointing out Trumps blatant lying and the hysteria about it, my father will move the goal post, change the subject and say things like “I don’t like Trump but Biden is too old.”
Okay I said, if Biden is too old who is chosen when he steps down? Kamala, who while qualified was chosen to gain vote. Is that the alternative you want? Silence. Trump is also too old and definitely showing his age but it doesn’t matter anymore because the goal post moves again.
It’s pure radicalization and anything that can be labeled as a negative is rationalized to avoid regret.
My mother remains 100% silent about politics. Which is equally as hard to have a conversation.
So when you have people so radicalized they only put ear plugs in their ear, because they’ve been trained to want a war at home. They are too deep, what do we do? Wait until they die? What about the generations they’re radicalizing after them?
These are tough questions in a world where people can’t be proud we even have any kind of infrastructure. People feel they deserve better when we already have the best circumstances to be alive.
There is no consensus because there is very little left to strive for in the eyes of the average citizen.
This is why we can’t have single payer healthcare, because our populations are too busy fighting for their radicalized ideas.
I don't understand the underlying presumption that data and statistics are how you deradicalize people. People become radical when they really want something they feel they can't get, and the most effective way to fight that is to offer some of what they want. There's no argument that can prove your father isn't allowed to want less immigration, even if you and I might prefer more.
It's a genuinely hard problem, of course, because there are lots of people in the Democratic coalition who are radicalized the other direction. They feel - equally genuinely, and equally strongly - that excluding or deporting an immigrant is a grievous moral wrong which we can't tolerate for mere political expediency. That's what it means to say that there's not a consensus on immigration.
That’s kind of sweet that you think radicalization is about policy preferences. Like the GP, my elderly parents have turned into Trump partisans. They listen to Fox News all day and night. It’s constant exposure to and participation in Two Minutes of Hate. My dad’s actually a sweet guy, and when I can address some of the crazy shit he’s clearly hearing from somewhere else, and ask him to take a step back and talk to me, not at me, we often get to a place where he’ll acknowledge that what he said/repeated really doesn’t reflect his own thoughts or feelings about something, but then it’s just right back into the vortex of propaganda, lies, and hatred spewing out of the TV, and it’s like we never talked at all.
I sometimes wonder if Fox goes beyond extreme partisanship and into a sort of pavlovian training of their audience. I've watched Fox before and whenever there is a negative or scary story they follow it up with a story about Democrats. At what point does that association get burned into the audience so that Dem\Prog = bad?
The issue is it’s not just Fox News. It’s all right wing media from almost 24/7 AM radio (which is what radicalized my dad) to basically all organized social media pipelines to local broadcast television and even YouTube. Spotify drives you to Joe Rogan who drives people to right wing radicals. It’s pervasive. You have to literally insulate yourself from it or it creeps in from every direction.
It’s no surprise that our county is where it is. There is far more profit in driving right wing propaganda (including liberals) than there is left wing propaganda because left wing propaganda is anti-capital by definition. And capital owns everything.
My radicalization came from an incident a few years ago where some brownshirts yelled "trump won" and emptied a clip into my sister's friend's house party. They were uninvolved with politics, and had no obvious "marks" like gender shit, ethnicity (white); just anything that conceivably would have made them a target. Just normal, innocent 20-somethings.
I got to hear about how (name I won't doxx) was being told how he was gonna be okay when he was obviously bleeding to death from a gut wound that wouldn't stop. It's the kind of story you hear about soldiers in a warzone. 7 people got shot; he was the one who died before paramedics could stabilize him.
Mass shootings are barely newsworthy anymore. They plopped the usual couple of sentences about it, and didn't mention the political angle on it, probably for fear of death threats.
All these societal institutions, politicians, churches - everyone that's supposed to give a shit; they all just collectively shrugged. "So it goes", as Vonnegut would say.
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It's that grotesquerie, that banality of people just pretending it's all social hysteria, or bothsides, or "it's not really happening" or any number of ways of just ... gaslighting it as not being real. That's what's so vile. It's a level of cowardice and dishonor I have no words for. At least own your deeds like actual men, don't weasel out of it like spineless worms.
I don’t think people assume violent crime doesn’t happen or isn’t bad but this is a country that’s normalized gun violence mostly because it means the right to bear arms is secure if you minimize it. You’re bumping up against propaganda. You’re bumping up against intentional indifference. The example of my mother who is totally silent on issues and discussing these hard topics, it’s not because we disagree but instead it’s how she pushes out the terrifying aspects of it. She votes red because that’s what she’s always voted and her pursuit of happiness is limited to her self. Maintaining that void and disconnection is how she maintains that safe state.
Don’t let the radicalization turn you into lashing out at society because people have insulated themselves.
I'm a from england where we don't have mass shootings an this seems so fucked up to me, I'm so sorry for you that must be terrible even to be close to that. I've heard of shootings in america but this description just makes it so real.
I wasn't there and I don't know your parents, so I can't claim to know for sure what was going on.
I've been on the other side of a similar conversation with my parents. I was a big Andrew Yang booster, going around ranting about how we obviously ought to establish a UBI immediately and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. As my parents correctly identified, I didn't really believe that, because I knew there were serious practical problems with funding such a program. But that doesn't mean that I was logically compelled to become a deficit hawk, or that I was brainwashed for not doing so. I was embracing the hyperbolic form of a problem I did (and do) see as quite important: we have enough resources to ensure that everyone in the US can live a decent life and ought to use them accordingly.
Your parents remind me of a former colleague who completely changed his political views after frequently listening to AM talk radio every time he drove between Goldstone and LA. Many of us (me included) are like a "sponge", we take on characteristics of those we surround ourselves with (virtually or in real life). I try (and I don’t always succeed) to associate myself with individuals that I admire and possess characteristics worthy of emulation. I have to be careful and have the discipline to avoid those with characteristics that I don’t want to unconsciously assume.
Most people are sponges in that way. There's a say that 'you are the average of the 5 people you are closest with'. Birds of a feather do in fact flock together.
> There is no consensus because there is very little left to strive for in the eyes of the average citizen.
I heavily agree on this, people have nothing to look forward to, and nothing to be proud of. In fact, the state of the US is more embarrassing than anything. Every other country has free healthcare, high speed rail, free education etc... On top of that, there is no upwards social mobility. I know a lot of people my age are literally gambling everything on crypto and hustle culture because they have no future prospects or hope.
> This is why we can’t have single payer healthcare, because our populations are too busy fighting for their radicalized ideas.
but I have to say that this is beyond naive. A single payer healthcare system is broadly popular, it has had the majority of support for decades at this point. We can't have it because it goes against the profit motive of the people running that industry. We already pay more than we would in taxpayer money than we would if healthcare was free across the board. Its as simple as that. Blatant corruption.
And this circles back to the last point, people see this, they realize this... and they don't believe that they can change this. This is exactly why, across the world, Luigi Mangione is hailed as a Saint. Thats exactly why the response was, "I get it." and people should try to examine that more. Its honestly not very complicated.
Fox News and such, are the only ones providing answers and giving people a place to channel this anger. But it is at the expense of marginalized groups, and truthfully, everyone. The Neo-Liberal order has failed everyone, and the Democrats have nothing to offer. I mean, we have corruption and oligarchs controlling the government. People feel hopeless, and powerless.
I mean that's not really what that says. There's multiple polls or multiple different groups ranging from Rich liberals to Hardline conservatives of which it's pretty much split down the middle plus or minus 5%.
And even then, I'd say that this is not really a good marker for like the general sentiment of the entirety of the population. But it's likely somewhat close as things currently stand, but you have to also recognize the current political climate, as well as that there has been no real counter narrative against trump's framing of politics. Democrats have done a horrible job of presenting any counter narrative whatsoever. And on top of that, a lot of people don't realise yet what these things are going to entail. I mean of course rich people want to downsize the government of course and of course they oppose tariffs. It's completely expected that trump supporters are going to be supportive of mass deportation. Boom my projection is that once people see how violent and cruel this is that a lot of them are going to be like. That's not what I wanted that I didn't know was going to be like this yada yada yada and quickly realise how a horrifying and stupid this is.
I do think you can change the corruption situation though, if that became the major topic of discussion. I liked this plan, although the presentation doesn't feel bipartisan enough:
The blatant corruption keeps people putting healthcare at priority 2 (or 10 really) by making them believe immigrants are coming for their sovereignty.
I disagree that people feel powerless to get healthcare, they are distracted. If you look at either party it is the one singular commonality between the two. Really it should be the flag ship of a 3rd party with the radicalized ideas second.
What we have to do is offer a hopeful vision of the future that rings true to a majority of people. This starts with breaking away from the current party lines that deny what most people know to be true. For example, almost everyone can agree that health care is too expensive, corporations have too much power, housing is unaffordable, Trump is too extreme, Biden was too old etc. yet neither party is willing to state the obvious. If we can get a major party to do this, or to at least support candidates that do, we can get out of this hole.
Edited first response since it was too reactionary on my part.
> hopeful vision of the future that rings true to a majority of people
77+ million Americans don't want a "hopeful vision of the future". They want to be angry. They're addicted to the anger. They want to hurt people. Present them any vision you want; they are not ever going to pay attention to it.
They want populism. That requires an enemy. It doesn't, however, require hurting anyone. If you're doing populism, you can either identify a set of scapegoats to slaughter or identify the actual impediments to solving the problems people experience in their lives. No party will identify such impediments, though. It would be very bad for business.
Most people don't want to be angry. But it's easy to be angry in times like this, and people just need to point to a target to justify the anger.
The answer is to ignore the theater and focus on improving lives anyway. The few truly hateful ones will be resolved quickly once people aren't worrying about rent, groceries, and making a living wage.
I think your right for some. I think there is also some aspect of identity. "I identify with <these set of ideals> and that's just what we do" kind of thing.
Everyone doesn’t agree that health care is too expensive. That’s the problem.
The other issue is that a significant portion of the country is not guided by logic. But fantasies like if we don’t save Israel it’s going to prevent the second coming of Christ and all natural disasters are caused by “legalizing gay marriage”.
> Everyone doesn’t agree that health care is too expensive.
Like a lot of the US, the gap between the haves and the have nots has grown. Many people on HN probably have great healthcare. Many seniors, often reliable voters, also have good healthcare through government programs that look a lot like single payer. This leaves poor people and those in the lower middle falling further behind.
It’s just the opposite problem. The Have nots - especially poor white America are some of the biggest opponents of “government run health care” and ironically enough, many of them are on Medicare.
Their fear is that their taxes will help “illegals” and “those lazy minorities”.
They are no more being “manipulated” than people were manipulated in the south during Jim Crew when people thought the world would come to an end if Black people drank from the same water fountain they did.
You’re assuming these people don’t have active animosity. Besides a large majority of the base are “evangelical Christian”. By definition religious people don’t appeal to logic.
How can you convince someone that Israel isn’t perfect (I don’t know enough to have a strong opinion either way) when they think that saving Israel is the first step in the second coming of Christ?
You are never going to convince these folks that Trump isn’t literally sent by God to save America?
What's wrong with the voting system? As one of the first and arguably greatest democracies (until perhaps recently?), the voting system is one thing that stands out as equal and fair when considering populations of different densities.
It’s literally the mechanics of the vote and how it encourages voting not for your favorite candidate, but the candidate most likely to win that isn’t the worst candidate for you.
The two party system makes negative campaigning far too effective. If there are more parties and one spends its resources making another one look bad the others would also benefit from it.
>> For example, almost everyone can agree that health care is too expensive, corporations have too much power, housing is unaffordable
I would argue that most people don't agree on this. Firstly housing;
For decades Americans were told that owning your own house was an investment. To keep home owners happy prices have to go up. Clearly the message was flawed, but no home owner wants to see that number go down. The arguments that rely on "this will reduce of home value" us a strong one thst gets lots of support.
If you ask folk they'll tell you Health Care is too expensive. But equally they'll push back on any approach to make it cheaper. Obamacare made it cheaper, the public voted dems out of office. Biden put price caps on pharma, and got voted out of office. In both cases Trump (with massive support) tried to, or did, wind it back.
Many states didn't take up expended Medicare. Now, we could argue that doesn't make health care cheaper (overall) it just moves it to a different payer. But apparently folk dont want that.
Corporations having power is completely because we give them power. If we truly believed in that excess we'd behave differently.
Truth is we mostly like our corporate overlords. We rail against Musk and Zuck, but we carry on using their platforms. Fox has power because they amplify people's fears and gives them a scapegoat.
Currently DEI is under the spotlight. It's a very convenient scapegoat to every unsuccessful white male. As long as we have someone to blame, we can avoid our own failings.
>If you ask folk they'll tell you Health Care is too expensive. But equally they'll push back on any approach to make it cheaper
As a game developer: people are great at telling you what's wrong in their experience. They are awful at giving solutions.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a similar thing here. There's another phenomenon where lowering speed limits is an unpopular decision. But once it's made almost all complaints disappear in a few months. I think this is one of the cases where we just need to do it and deal with any fallout as it comes.
>Corporations having power is completely because we give them power
Not necessarily. Especially not for Healthcare. That's an industry of people leaving the consumer almost completely in the dark and having businesses battle with businesses in how much money they can extract or save. And it's not the kind of thing you can just cancel and find a competitor for.
In other cases I feel many are frustrated. But most aren't frustrated enough to give up concinience nor security. So yes, we do give powerto Musk, to Zuckerberg, etc. Those are in our control but nothing has hit at a scale to really hurt them.
> If you ask folk they'll tell you Health Care is too expensive. But equally they'll push back on any approach to make it cheaper. Obamacare made it cheaper, the public voted dems out of office. Biden put price caps on pharma, and got voted out of office. In both cases Trump (with massive support) tried to, or did, wind it back.
Vague memory here: IIRC, alongside Obamacare came a requirement to have healthcare, and if you didn't get it you'd be penalized on your yearly taxes. I'm fairly sure I remember that being a big part of the issue with it, people didn't want to be forced into it.
Yes it was the mandate that the GOP lost their minds on. The “don’t tread on me” crowd. The problem is that an insurance like program can’t work if the only people paying are sick people.
I don’t disagree but do you have a hypothetical or real example of what that looks like? I am stumped from trying over the last 20 years. It is important to realize that there is a mythos to your parents. My Trump voting father also voted for Obama because he hated Bush for the wars. I originally thought he saw the Hope. Stuff like that keeps you seeking the non-existent Hope person. You’re negotiating with the subliminal-y terrorized.
Wait what? I’m asking about how you have a conversation with people who refuse to discuss their point of view. It’s me? I don’t know what you mean by that.
Are you saying I’m in denial about my perspectives? I never advocated that an election was stolen or that Biden or Trump did nothing during their terms like my parents have. I am the one in denial?
Can you point out this different perspective. A lot of commentary after the election was that “there’s a lesson to be learned here” and I hear that a lot from Trumpers. What is this lesson I need to learn about lying and hating? Why am I expected to take the lying side seriously? Won’t the answers be more lies?
See this what I don’t get, these opinions my father has are based on lies and bad data. So I’m just supposed to look the other way and shrug my shoulders?
You’re allowed to have opinions and there is actual reality and history. You don’t get to just throw out ideas because you think the idea is wrong. Back up the wrongness with data so I can see what you are talking about.
No I’m not here to debate specific political topics, I’m here to question the unreasonable silence. The conversations that end in silence are not hostile or angry. I don’t think that reaction is healthy or reasonable to reaching consensus.
You seem itching, however, please feel free to provide your own example of arguments where you think my father agrees and I am wrong if that is your perogative. This is the moving the goal post, I was referencing in my original comment.
I am not diving into it because this thread is not about immigration laws. Again you’re moving the goal posts. My silence is not unreasonable but a refusal to digress from the conversation. You have a larger point that I’m just ignorant but we need to debate immigration to prove that? If I am so obviously ignorant please reply with these possible qualities or realizations I may need to have.
Is it that I’m not afraid or panicked when numbers shift higher or lower in regards immigration, crime, etc? Often I find citing a number is used to instill shock and fear in the topic, even if the under lying systems are still effective regardless of the number.
That’s hysteria to imply that is a common every day occurrence. There are going to be awful people trafficking humans whether you lock down the border even more or not. You’re also baiting. You already show signs of disinterest in a discussion about it.
I also want to say “millions have his same opinions” doesn’t mean you speak for the entire country and those opinions are reasonable. It is not silent agreement. It doesn’t even mean you speak for your entire party because you’ve corralled together. A good portion of the voters flipped and a lot of people didn’t vote.
Opinions like illegal immigration are well polled.
It was a main platform of Donald Trump's.
Millions voted for him for that reason.
Those opinions on the border closure are reasonable, ranging from wanting to stop fentanyl deaths, ending human trafficking, reducing gang violence, property security, ending labor exploitation, reduce economic costs and more.
No they aren’t reasonable, because most of those things won’t change because you close the border. We know this because we have plenty of rigorous studies to show us that.
So trafficking comes from other places so no point in reducing it in places we can control?
We monitor ports of entry. It's easier if you don't have to monitor the entire border, you can focus more on ports of entry for other trafficking sources.
To be frank, yes. Arguing with most single individuals is pointless anyway. If we were able to focus these conversations on congress we'd be in much better shape.
>What about the generations they’re radicalizing after them?
You have time to stop them. It's just scientific fact that younger brains are more malleable and open to information. It won't always work, but there is some hope there.
>There is no consensus because there is very little left to strive for in the eyes of the average citizen.
Maybe we shouldn't have let a few hundred rich guys beat us in an argument about Healthcare. Which is a bipartisan issue but they divide us with politics.
It’s hard for a number of reasons. Many people are struggling, and people’s tendency to bike shed means they look for and grasp onto the explanation(s) they think they understand. Propaganda takes advantage of this fact. Whatever the problem, it’s Biden/immigrants/DEIs fault.
Are we to agree the parties and their PR mouth pieces do not speak for the people? A lot of blue did not want Biden the first time. The mouth piece said he was a bridge to 2024 when they’d have a better candidate ready.
Do not blame the voters for PR mouth piece unless you hear the lies are being repeated by the voters. If you don’t avoid this then it turns into a goal post moving contest.
FWIW, the algorithm people use in politics is usually to find someone who is on the same emotional wavelength as they are, then copy their actions. Trying to reason with people about political matters is generally futile because they don't take a particularly close interest in real politics and rationally don't make decisions based on arguments because they don't understand or remember any of the issues in detail. Although arguing is a lot of fun if you like arguing; and it can help sharpen the mind.
Your arguments are going to be wildly unpersuasive because your parents don't understand why they're voting the way they vote. They just know that their emotional state is represented at Fox & Fox suggests voting for Trump. The same dynamic is true for pretty much everyone except the rare souls who like to actually look up how & why politicians vote in practice (which most people don't have time to do).
Try figuring out what emotions your parents are feeling and why. Even if you don't change their minds you'll probably get to a better spot in the relationship than if you're trying to convince them Kamala was a strong candidate (which, given her record, tough sell - how does a strong candidate lose to Hitler, we might ask to annoy everyone).
I definitely have my radicalizations and biases but in my effort not to repeat the silence, I am definitely trying to aim away from what I view as mistakes. But heck I could totally be wrong and maybe I’m just a dumb asshole who wants healthcare.
rants about how immigrants are flooding the cities. When shown data and statistics and pointing out Trumps blatant lying
What? You are more misinformed than your father if you don't know that illegal aliens are flooding into the country. Trying to choose a neutral source for you.
Since January 2021, when Joe Biden came to office, there have been more than 10 million encounters - about 8 million came over the southwest land border with Mexico.
Under the Trump administration, there were 2.4 million encounters on this border.
When basementcat was CTO, software engineers closed 2.4 million Jira tickets. When WillPostForFood was CTO, 10 million Jira tickets were closed. Is this sufficient information to determine who was the more effective CTO?
Yet somehow has immigrant mayors for nearly all major cities, had a couple of immigrant PMs, and currently has a PoC immigrant-origin leader of the CONSERVATIVES? Please enlighten me for I'm utterly confused /s.
That data isn't sufficient for the claim you're making. Another interpretation could be that one President's CBP was approximately four times as effective.
The truth is harder to discern when each administration redefines encounters, but for example, the Trump administration deported fewer per annum than the Obama administration. I don't know what to make of that, myself, but I think that would come as a surprise to many voters.
So Biden was 3x more effective at catching illegal immigrants than Trump was? This isn't the argument you seem to think it is. Was this due to Trump directing CBP to not bother watching the areas "guarded" by his scrap metal project or something?
And what makes you think the Biden administration wasn't just doing a better job? Or Trump administration wasn't underreporting to make him look better. If you don't test, it isn't there!
While I can recognize the sentiment, I do err on the side of caution moving into the post-COVID world. Once you start assuming "the other side could be lying" then its going to be pretty difficult for you to ever accept whatever truth is. You begin to doubt anything and everything in favor of whatever makes you feel right.
Except Trump lies if it makes him look better as easy as he breathes. It's not that he "could be lying" -- he lies all the damn time. No concern for the truth, only for his image. Then he sends his propagandists out to push the narrative and make excuses for what he says. "They're eating the cats and dogs." -Trump, and "Just remember: What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what's happening." -Trump; It's ridiculously Orwellian.
Believe me, I get it. BUT, and even I hate saying this, if both sides continue to resort to "the other side is lying" - aka people claiming 2020 was rigged and people claiming deportation/crime numbers are under-reported.
I'm not saying believe everything without due diligence. I'm saying everyone calling everyone else liars is not going to end peacefully for anyone.
I'm just saying, if you insist Trump is telling the truth, you should have evidence. Because there is rarely evidence to back the assertion he is telling the truth. I'm not calling everyone a liar. Just Trump and his cronies. Most people don't realize they are repeating lies for Trump because they believe the lies. I'm not going to sit back and give that guy the benefit of the doubt after he has lied over and over again. All benefit of the doubt goes to those he has deceived.
Obama had a super majority and could've done single payer, but he let the insurance companies write the ACA while letting Citibank choose his cabinet. Such is life when you give Democrats the power they need to make change.
They'll fight back against the power structures by ceding control to them, and taking massive bribes. Every time.
Even Bernie Sanders is a Big Pharma lackey, accepting millions.
> Obama had a super majority and could've done single payer, but he let the insurance companies write the ACA
Ah, a low-information voter, I see.
_Obama_ didn't write the ACA. It was written in Congress, and it passed only because Democrats had a once-in-a-lifetime filibuster-proof majority. Not a single Republican Senator voted for the ACA.
In particular, Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) blocked the public option. Obama tried to push for it behind the doors, but the ACA was as far as the Blue Dog Democrats were willing to be pushed.
And then, of course, Mitch McConnell happened and the Senate ground to a halt. ACA basically has not been amended since its passing.
The ACA was written by and for the benefit of insurance companies. It solidified their strangehold on the industry, and has resulted in rapidly skyrocketing prices.
Lobbyists, such as AHIP, were instrumental in structuring the law to benefit insurance companies -- including the removal of the public option.
Also, your argument was a strawman, as I never said he wrote it. If you re-read my post, you'll note I said "Obama [...] could've done single payer". As president, laws get enacted based on his signature and as the figurehead of the Democratic party he has significant leverage and sway over laws, so much so that he took credit for the ACA in its entirety. It's irrelevant whether he wrote it or not, nor did I make that argument.
Claiming that ACA is an insurance company handout because it hasn't been amended is a very interesting argument. The Democrats had a super majority. They could've done anything!
The Democrats are a party by and for lobbyist interests. Ultra rare supermajority? Time for a lobbyist handout!
> The ACA was written by and for the benefit of insurance companies. It solidified their strangehold on the industry, and has resulted in rapidly skyrocketing prices.
That's incorrect. ACA was a mostly-consensus project, and insurance companies absolutely hated the 20% profit margin limit in the ACA.
At the end of the day _someone_ has to pay for the care. It has to be either the state (like in Medicare), or private insurance companies. Both approaches can work just fine. We need more regulation of the insurance companies, and we need to decouple them from employers.
> Ultra rare supermajority? Time for a lobbyist handout!
Republicans could have stepped in and offered a public version. Just _one_ Senator would have been enough. Yet Republicans decided to stonewall the ACA completely.
There isn’t a universe where insurance companies didn’t write the ACA under Obama. The lobbied to hell Congress and Senate write the laws, Obama pushes through the best we get from them.
The ACA as a single payer totally supportive law would maybe have passed back in the early 1800s when communists headed West.
Obama did not have a supermajority. He didn’t even have 60 Democrat votes, hence having to compromise heavily on ACA, which passed in the 6 months (out of 8 years) that Obama had enough votes with a few independent Senators.
Stop 'both-sides-ing' it. Only one party has been pushing for minority rule (by their own party) authoritarianism for over a decade, and now having gained control is running roughshod over all checks & balances and corrupting all institutions to service their executive(s).
This is the big-standard authoritarian playbook. In functioning democracies the three branches of govt (executive, legislative judiciary), and the branches of society, industry, business, finance, press, academy, religion, social groups, sports, etc. are all independent. Under authoritarian regimes, they are corrupted & coerced (threat of prosecution or ability to pay & serve to avoid prosecution, or ability to raid the country's coffers) by illegitimate use of the power of govt to serve the executive.
That is where we are now, and will be until the people make it stop.
Have we ever not been in political purgatory? Some fundamental political issues such as federalism have been fought over since the founding of the republic. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I don't think it's crazy to say politics now is different and more disfunctional than the past. Congress can't pass anything substantive and needed to change their own rules to even appoint judges, the Supreme Court has overturned many precedents, and it seems like a lot of the actual policy is executive orders (and also what the executive branch chooses to enforce or not). And that ignores things like accusations of election fraud and a million other different points of nonsense that are shockingly mainstream.
The fact it's always been a mess doesn't mean it's not significantly more of a mess now than many times in the past (not that right now is the worst ever, it's hard to beat a civil war, but it's pretty bad).
