Country Not as Divided as Seems

[Anonymous]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/media/reliable-sources-tim-dixon-podcast/index.html

"They found that 67% of the country is what the organization calls the "Exhausted Majority," a group that is displeased by America's polarization and would like for people to find a common ground."

I'm in that middle. Of course, here I'm called a "troll" because I see a middle ground. Or a "Trumper" if I don't follow Democratic orthodox-y. On a more Republican-leaning forum I participate in, people are more likely to ignore or lightly engage with comments outside their political view. It's not as vindictive, although probably as unwilling to consider an alternate viewpoint. And before anyone gets twitchy that I'm calling Democratic-leaning people more vindictive, I'm fairly sure it doesn't fall to the depths seen here only because pseudonyms are required.

The article talks about polarized news media as one of the potential issues. But I wonder if being able to engage anonymously, or even pseudo-anonymously doesn't also encourage such divisiveness.

[Anonymous]

I am a liberal, but I am very concerned about polarization also. I make point of not calling anyone racist or any other name on this board.

I don't know if anonymity is the problem. I've heard of a number of cases where people have stopped talking about politics with friends or relatives because both sides get too angry.

[Anonymous]

Meh. Trump personally drives a lot of the nastiness and hate. Just look at his rally speeches. The GOP has become like the kid that loves to taunt others and then whines when they won't take it quietly.

[Anonymous]

It's funny because your post has a lot of little digs at liberals in it. So you are contributing to the divisions, my friend.

I personally think most of the country is united in being tired of having an amoral narcissist embarrassing us on a world stage. That includes my Republican friends and family members who don't like Trump's meanness. They're midwesterners and midwesterners don't in general do meanness.

[Anonymous]

Jamal Khashoggi was strapped to a table and dismembered alive by Saudi Arabian henchmen on October 2. His blood curdling screams were broadcast to the outside world on his Apple Watch for the seven minutes it took to kill him.

The next day, on October 3, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley privately drafted her resignation letter. (Thank you, Paula Cobia). Six days later, on October 9, she submitted it to a stunned public. No plausible explanation was offered for her sudden departure.

It was not until October 12, a full ten days later after the brutal killing, that the world began to even learn of Khashoggi’s disappearance.

It would take almost another full week after that for details of the gruesome ambush to publicly emerge.

What is clear, is that the American government certainly knew of Khashoggi’s killing before we knew, and most certainly in advance of the murder itself. Yet the past two weeks have seen nothing less than an absurd, obsequious public cover up from the president of the United States himself and top cabinet members for this gruesome ambush by the Saudi Arabian government of somebody Trump was certainly familiar with.

Pat Robertson of the Evangelical community has told his flock all the Trump talking points. That this man’s life and extrajudicial torture and assassination should not matter to us, because $100 billion is on the table in weaponry that the Saudis need to kill the Yemeni people with, and, as seems to be the new reality in Gotham, who could possibly know the truth anyway?

The worst part of what is happening is not Donald Trump. It is trying to understand the millions of people enabling this. The people who will send the same people back to let this continue while screaming about tyranny and the swamp and claiming some Orwellian moral high ground.

I never thought a party could take a trillion dollars from the treasury for their wealthiest donors, steal Internet privacy as the new electronic gold, end net neutrality, blame the massive deficit not on their tax heist but on your Social Security and Medicare then promise to slash those if re-elected, sell junk insurance plans to tens of millions and seek to take away insurance from tens of millions of others, imprison children literally grabbed from parents who are then deported with NO MEANS of reunification, put a man on the supreme court sexual assault allegations be damned, and cover up a brutal murder for a dictatorial regime for no proffered reason except to allow that dictatorial regime to continue genocide in Yemen using the weapons we were selling them.

Every day is a new lowest day in America.

Today is no different.

It is difficult wondering what the bottom might be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's funny because your post has a lot of little digs at liberals in it. So you are contributing to the divisions, my friend.

I personally think most of the country is united in being tired of having an amoral narcissist embarrassing us on a world stage. That includes my Republican friends and family members who don't like Trump's meanness. They're midwesterners and midwesterners don't in general do meanness.

The Midwest is absolutely rebelling against Trump in November. Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin - all were supposed to have competitive Senate races and none do. And the R candidates for Governor are in trouble too.

[Anonymous]

OP gives a pass to Trump's near-constant lying and hate-filled rhetoric and conveniently pins the blame on liberals. Yawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Trump personally drives a lot of the nastiness and hate. Just look at his rally speeches. The GOP has become like the kid that loves to taunt others and then whines when they won't take it quietly.

Trump's a symptom of a deeper problem. He took advantage of divisions that already existed and made them worse. But after he's gone, the divisions will still be there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jamal Khashoggi was strapped to a table and dismembered alive by Saudi Arabian henchmen on October 2. His blood curdling screams were broadcast to the outside world on his Apple Watch for the seven minutes it took to kill him.

The next day, on October 3, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley privately drafted her resignation letter. (Thank you, Paula Cobia). Six days later, on October 9, she submitted it to a stunned public. No plausible explanation was offered for her sudden departure.

It was not until October 12, a full ten days later after the brutal killing, that the world began to even learn of Khashoggi’s disappearance.

It would take almost another full week after that for details of the gruesome ambush to publicly emerge.

What is clear, is that the American government certainly knew of Khashoggi’s killing before we knew, and most certainly in advance of the murder itself. Yet the past two weeks have seen nothing less than an absurd, obsequious public cover up from the president of the United States himself and top cabinet members for this gruesome ambush by the Saudi Arabian government of somebody Trump was certainly familiar with.

Pat Robertson of the Evangelical community has told his flock all the Trump talking points. That this man’s life and extrajudicial torture and assassination should not matter to us, because $100 billion is on the table in weaponry that the Saudis need to kill the Yemeni people with, and, as seems to be the new reality in Gotham, who could possibly know the truth anyway?

The worst part of what is happening is not Donald Trump. It is trying to understand the millions of people enabling this. The people who will send the same people back to let this continue while screaming about tyranny and the swamp and claiming some Orwellian moral high ground.

I never thought a party could take a trillion dollars from the treasury for their wealthiest donors, steal Internet privacy as the new electronic gold, end net neutrality, blame the massive deficit not on their tax heist but on your Social Security and Medicare then promise to slash those if re-elected, sell junk insurance plans to tens of millions and seek to take away insurance from tens of millions of others, imprison children literally grabbed from parents who are then deported with NO MEANS of reunification, put a man on the supreme court sexual assault allegations be damned, and cover up a brutal murder for a dictatorial regime for no proffered reason except to allow that dictatorial regime to continue genocide in Yemen using the weapons we were selling them.

Every day is a new lowest day in America.

Today is no different.

It is difficult wondering what the bottom might be.

And yet millions will vote for them. The bottom? If at least the House does not go to the Democrats, I would not be surprised if we have mass protests and tanks in the street. Oh wait, forgot that many are more interested in the NFL than having their social security taken away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jamal Khashoggi was strapped to a table and dismembered alive by Saudi Arabian henchmen on October 2. His blood curdling screams were broadcast to the outside world on his Apple Watch for the seven minutes it took to kill him.

The next day, on October 3, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley privately drafted her resignation letter. (Thank you, Paula Cobia). Six days later, on October 9, she submitted it to a stunned public. No plausible explanation was offered for her sudden departure.

It was not until October 12, a full ten days later after the brutal killing, that the world began to even learn of Khashoggi’s disappearance.

It would take almost another full week after that for details of the gruesome ambush to publicly emerge.

What is clear, is that the American government certainly knew of Khashoggi’s killing before we knew, and most certainly in advance of the murder itself. Yet the past two weeks have seen nothing less than an absurd, obsequious public cover up from the president of the United States himself and top cabinet members for this gruesome ambush by the Saudi Arabian government of somebody Trump was certainly familiar with.

Pat Robertson of the Evangelical community has told his flock all the Trump talking points. That this man’s life and extrajudicial torture and assassination should not matter to us, because $100 billion is on the table in weaponry that the Saudis need to kill the Yemeni people with, and, as seems to be the new reality in Gotham, who could possibly know the truth anyway?

The worst part of what is happening is not Donald Trump. It is trying to understand the millions of people enabling this. The people who will send the same people back to let this continue while screaming about tyranny and the swamp and claiming some Orwellian moral high ground.

I never thought a party could take a trillion dollars from the treasury for their wealthiest donors, steal Internet privacy as the new electronic gold, end net neutrality, blame the massive deficit not on their tax heist but on your Social Security and Medicare then promise to slash those if re-elected, sell junk insurance plans to tens of millions and seek to take away insurance from tens of millions of others, imprison children literally grabbed from parents who are then deported with NO MEANS of reunification, put a man on the supreme court sexual assault allegations be damned, and cover up a brutal murder for a dictatorial regime for no proffered reason except to allow that dictatorial regime to continue genocide in Yemen using the weapons we were selling them.

Every day is a new lowest day in America.

Today is no different.

It is difficult wondering what the bottom might be.

Very well put.

[Anonymous]

There’s no “both sides” to this, there’s no polarization from the left. Whatever your politics, you sound like an angry conservative,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s no “both sides” to this, there’s no polarization from the left. Whatever your politics, you sound like an angry conservative,

Liberal here. I see a lot of polarization on the left. Both sides are angry right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jamal Khashoggi was strapped to a table and dismembered alive by Saudi Arabian henchmen on October 2. His blood curdling screams were broadcast to the outside world on his Apple Watch for the seven minutes it took to kill him.

The next day, on October 3, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley privately drafted her resignation letter. (Thank you, Paula Cobia). Six days later, on October 9, she submitted it to a stunned public. No plausible explanation was offered for her sudden departure.

It was not until October 12, a full ten days later after the brutal killing, that the world began to even learn of Khashoggi’s disappearance.

It would take almost another full week after that for details of the gruesome ambush to publicly emerge.

What is clear, is that the American government certainly knew of Khashoggi’s killing before we knew, and most certainly in advance of the murder itself. Yet the past two weeks have seen nothing less than an absurd, obsequious public cover up from the president of the United States himself and top cabinet members for this gruesome ambush by the Saudi Arabian government of somebody Trump was certainly familiar with.

Pat Robertson of the Evangelical community has told his flock all the Trump talking points. That this man’s life and extrajudicial torture and assassination should not matter to us, because $100 billion is on the table in weaponry that the Saudis need to kill the Yemeni people with, and, as seems to be the new reality in Gotham, who could possibly know the truth anyway?

The worst part of what is happening is not Donald Trump. It is trying to understand the millions of people enabling this. The people who will send the same people back to let this continue while screaming about tyranny and the swamp and claiming some Orwellian moral high ground.

I never thought a party could take a trillion dollars from the treasury for their wealthiest donors, steal Internet privacy as the new electronic gold, end net neutrality, blame the massive deficit not on their tax heist but on your Social Security and Medicare then promise to slash those if re-elected, sell junk insurance plans to tens of millions and seek to take away insurance from tens of millions of others, imprison children literally grabbed from parents who are then deported with NO MEANS of reunification, put a man on the supreme court sexual assault allegations be damned, and cover up a brutal murder for a dictatorial regime for no proffered reason except to allow that dictatorial regime to continue genocide in Yemen using the weapons we were selling them.

Every day is a new lowest day in America.

Today is no different.

It is difficult wondering what the bottom might be.

Very, very well said.

I used to be an independent moderate. Thanks to Trump and his traitorous cronies, I will never vote Republican again. The Republican party wants to destroy this country and all the good it stands for.

[Anonymous]

I've been a moderate republican for many years married to a moderate democrat. The lies and basic nastiness that spews from Trump's mouth makes me ill. But beyond that it is how he has destroyed what Republicans traditionally stand for and how McConnell and Ryan embrace it. They use to hate tariffs, now they love them. They use to hate deficits, now they accelerate them. They use to hate tyrants, now they embrace them. McConnell blaming the growing deficit on SS and Medicare is such BS because they have been issues for years. The tax cuts have simply not generated the growth needed to offset them. Cutting SS and Medicare to deal with a deficit acceleration caused by corporate and upper income tax cuts is a disgrace.

A big problem we have is that there are no democrats, at this point, worthy of presidential consideration and there is no leadership (Pelosi, Schumer) that has any degree of moderation. All moderate voices on both sides are being overwhelmed by well funded screamers on the fringes. The moderates can't be heard due to all of the noise generated by the dividers including our "Mouth in Chief"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been a moderate republican for many years married to a moderate democrat. The lies and basic nastiness that spews from Trump's mouth makes me ill. But beyond that it is how he has destroyed what Republicans traditionally stand for and how McConnell and Ryan embrace it. They use to hate tariffs, now they love them. They use to hate deficits, now they accelerate them. They use to hate tyrants, now they embrace them. McConnell blaming the growing deficit on SS and Medicare is such BS because they have been issues for years. The tax cuts have simply not generated the growth needed to offset them. Cutting SS and Medicare to deal with a deficit acceleration caused by corporate and upper income tax cuts is a disgrace.

A big problem we have is that there are no democrats, at this point, worthy of presidential consideration and there is no leadership (Pelosi, Schumer) that has any degree of moderation. All moderate voices on both sides are being overwhelmed by well funded screamers on the fringes. The moderates can't be heard due to all of the noise generated by the dividers including our "Mouth in Chief"

I see a lot of "moderate" Democrats - I like many of the Democratic senators - Murphy, Klobachar, Coons, Whitehouse, Durbin, Cardin, Duckworth, Kaine, Warner, etc, etc. I don't know if any of them have Presidential ambitions though. But it seems to me the Dems have a very impressive political bench.