The Ancient Greeks considered politics to be the 5th branch of philosophy. Politics are the means by which we implement our philosophy in the real world.
The US was built on a philosophy. For most of our history, Americans agreed with and embraced the ideas of the Declaration and the Constitution. They understood that the US wasn’t perfect, but we were working toward our philosophical ideals. Our politics were about means, not ends.
That’s no longer true. Now we have a fairly large group of people who believe our history is evil. That our Constitution is a “living document” which they are eager to stretch to any interpretation so they can justify imposing their version of utopia on the country.
Divisive politics is only a symptom. A clash of philosophy is the source of the problem.
I think of myself as a political centrist. An unfortunate tendency I've noticed (more so in the last few years) is the inability of those on the far right or far left to hear about survey data (evidence) on a particular issue when the data conflicts with their opinion about the issue. Immediately dismissing the source and methodology of the survey.
I think that Progressives are much more comfortable wearing their politics on their sleeve. As someone in Deep Blue America, I think Progressives have fun loudly mocking something Trump did or said in a non-political situation, while conservatives keep their mouths shut.
Progressives generally imagine everyone already agrees with them, so they see no issue.
Mostly I just listen. Only a third of people are registered to a party, and half of them aren't insane, so I wait for one of the typical insane statements before responding in such a way as to convince them I don't even know who is President let alone care.
If they don't bring up chemtrails, the 2020 stolen election, or TDS, I'll keep listening with an occasional "uh huh" to show I'm still in there. Most people have a fairly legitimate gripe, things aren't working out how they'd like and they feel powerless to do anything about it.
Via canvasing what was then a swing state in 08, 10, and 2012, I must have listened to thousands of people, and my job was to listen, not to opine. There are stronger opinions these days and more ridiculously false info via partisan sources, but people's underlying unease with our government is the same.
Yes people do tend to have a legitimate grip. So much more is controversial today than when I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Our federal government was much smaller then, so fewer people had fewer federal government activities about which to complain. Not that there weren’t any problems, just that they may have been handled at the local or state level.
There was 9 cabinet level departments in 1955:
• State
• Treasury
• Defense (created 1947)
• Justice
• Interior
• Agriculture
• Commerce
• Labor
• Post Office Department (Cabinet-level until 1971)
We now have 7 more:
Health & Human Services
Housing & Urban Development
Transportation
Energy
Education
Veteran’s Affairs
Homeland Security
We have so much more to discuss, complain about, or defend
The Ancient Greeks considered politics to be the 5th branch of philosophy. Politics are the means by which we implement our philosophy in the real world.
The US was built on a philosophy. For most of our history, Americans agreed with and embraced the ideas of the Declaration and the Constitution. They understood that the US wasn’t perfect, but we were working toward our philosophical ideals. Our politics were about means, not ends.
That’s no longer true. Now we have a fairly large group of people who believe our history is evil. That our Constitution is a “living document” which they are eager to stretch to any interpretation so they can justify imposing their version of utopia on the country.
Divisive politics is only a symptom. A clash of philosophy is the source of the problem.
I think of myself as a political centrist. An unfortunate tendency I've noticed (more so in the last few years) is the inability of those on the far right or far left to hear about survey data (evidence) on a particular issue when the data conflicts with their opinion about the issue. Immediately dismissing the source and methodology of the survey.
I think that Progressives are much more comfortable wearing their politics on their sleeve. As someone in Deep Blue America, I think Progressives have fun loudly mocking something Trump did or said in a non-political situation, while conservatives keep their mouths shut.
Progressives generally imagine everyone already agrees with them, so they see no issue.
Mostly I just listen. Only a third of people are registered to a party, and half of them aren't insane, so I wait for one of the typical insane statements before responding in such a way as to convince them I don't even know who is President let alone care.
If they don't bring up chemtrails, the 2020 stolen election, or TDS, I'll keep listening with an occasional "uh huh" to show I'm still in there. Most people have a fairly legitimate gripe, things aren't working out how they'd like and they feel powerless to do anything about it.
Via canvasing what was then a swing state in 08, 10, and 2012, I must have listened to thousands of people, and my job was to listen, not to opine. There are stronger opinions these days and more ridiculously false info via partisan sources, but people's underlying unease with our government is the same.
Yes people do tend to have a legitimate grip. So much more is controversial today than when I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Our federal government was much smaller then, so fewer people had fewer federal government activities about which to complain. Not that there weren’t any problems, just that they may have been handled at the local or state level.
There was 9 cabinet level departments in 1955:
• State
• Treasury
• Defense (created 1947)
• Justice
• Interior
• Agriculture
• Commerce
• Labor
• Post Office Department (Cabinet-level until 1971)
We now have 7 more:
Health & Human Services
Housing & Urban Development
Transportation
Energy
Education
Veteran’s Affairs
Homeland Security
We have so much more to discuss, complain about, or defend