Where are we going with all of these emotionally charged views? Even looking at the comments here, if you were to refute a claim or challenge a point that originated from a popular narrative, you’re painted as “the enemy”. I can’t be a moderate anymore as calling for dialogue turns into “you’d never negotiate with Nazis, why even compromise with Republicans?!”
Is the right answer to dehumanize anyone with viewpoints and a political label different than the “correct” one? Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump?
I hope to God that it doesn’t take some kind of national unifying event that forcefully pulls us back together, neighbor to neighbor, because it shouldn’t take an immediate threat to survival for us to find common goals and listen to each other’s needs.
Pretend you’re in the Weimar Republic fully knowing what lies ahead, while everyone around you either doesn’t care or wants that kind of future. What do you do? Do you just give in and try to make friends with those people?
Nothing that is happening right now is normal. Checks and balances are hanging on by a thread. Executive power is being consolidated in ways never seen before in the US. 2-year-olds are sitting in concentration camps in the desert and are being forced to defend themselves in court. All the while our politicians are lying to our faces to cover this up. We should marching in the streets every day, not trying to make friends.
In my opinion, these differences are irreconcilable. The only escape valve is a multi-party system. This is something all sides could in theory work towards. Will the Republicans be willing to give up power in order to do so? Unlikely.
The national unifying event premise doesn't work regardless. That lasts for five minutes. It took about 24 to 36 months for it to wear off after 9/11, even the wars didn't maintain any meaningful national unity as it pertained to the Bush Administration. The two political camps quickly went back to their camps.
> Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump?
Comically, this is what the far left said was going to happen to them with Trump's Presidency. They're still saying it. John Ashcroft (whose policies I disliked immensely) was supposed to put everyone that disagreed with Bush into gulags. Reagan was going to get us all killed in a nuclear war, because he was crazy. And so on the hysterical behavior goes.
Maybe you've seen the insane chanting repetition videos online, where they indoctrinate the left marchers on what to say and how to behave, so they can put on an entirely fake show of protest. It's all about shrieking as loudly as possible to get as much attention as possible, and to intimidate others into capitulating. The concept is, the people that act out the most dramatically win, and get their way. The problem with that is, it loses its effect rapidly, you have to perpetually act crazier.
With as bad as it has all become lately, it can get worse yet. That's when the political class will begin locking down the capital and restricting access. We currently have Twitter flooded with death threats on Republican Senators, with the celebrity left saying the most vile, evil things possible about Senator Collins (and Twitter openly allowing it). Rand Paul's wife sent a letter to Cory Booker, pointing out that she now sleeps with a loaded gun next to her bed, because they're receiving endless numbers of death threats.
It can't end any other way than the US Government begins locking down its security and access further, cracking down on protest behavior, threats, etc.
Is the right answer to dehumanize anyone with viewpoints and a political label different than the “correct” one? Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump?
I hope to God that it doesn’t take some kind of national unifying event that forcefully pulls us back together, neighbor to neighbor, because it shouldn’t take an immediate threat to survival for us to find common goals and listen to each other’s needs.