State of the Union 2016

Why would there be? Nothing was said of substance.

 

Nor was any expected. I hope our next POTUS can unite instead of divide. Based on our current candidates I don't have much hope of that either really.

 

Want to know why we're divided, when we divided, and who is doing the dividing?

http://voteview.com/political_polarization_2014.htm



Simply put, Republicans have grown exponentially more conservative over the past 40 years.

Southern Democrats have moved more to the left as the conservative members of that sect switched to the Republican party after the 1960s.

 

Well that's certainly the spin that we've been hearing from the left.

"Obama is a Republican"

"Obama is about where Nixon was politically"

 

It's not spin as much as it is, you know, completely true and supported by mountains of data.

Hell, his signature legislation is a Republican plan recycled from the 1990s.

 

LOL, wow.

Well, I'm sure if you keep repeating nonsense about Obama as a centrist then someone might eventually believe you....just probably won't be today.

Of course, someone might do the same thing back and start claiming that Ted Cruz is really a slightly left leaning centrist who is really a Democrat. Up is really down, left is really right, dogs are really cats and so on

 

You couldn't be more off in your analogy. That is an awful analogy...lol.

Maybe if you just keep repeating your (tired) narrative over and over and over and over and over and over, someone might believe you.

 

That's kind of everyone's reaction to you in this thread when you just brushed aside 150 years worth of congressional data as hot air b/c it didn't fit your narrative. LOL, wow. Just sayin'.

 

That graph WAS just hot air and the narrative that Obama is a centrist is absolutely hilarious. Of course, I know that the left leaning members of this board will eat up nonsense like that so I don't expect any different.

 

Note to casual D&D observers: this is what is known in psychology as projecting.

In this instance, since the data does not support his beliefs (also see cognitive dissonance), Bobby is employing projection as a defense mechanism by claiming that I am portraying Obama as something he is not, whilst doing exactly that himself.

 

Welcome to the new Republican party. He's going to make an excellent Trump voter.

 

Do you ever get tired of being flat out wrong?

1. I'm not a Republican.

2. I'm the furthest thing from a Trump voter.

Just because you are laughably wrong about how you characterize the political leanings of the current president doesn't mean that you should follow that up by being laughably wrong about the political leanings of others.

 

For someone who claims to not be a republican, you certainly spend a lot of your time shoveling their bull****.

 

I'm sure it probably looks like that to you, a Democratic partisan. Obama nut huggers often think the same but it's simply not true. The closest thing to a candidate I could fully support in this election would be Rand Paul, and he has very little Republican support.....that should probably tell you about where I stand.

 

Don't be ridiculous. I'm sure President Ted Cruz will do an excellent job bringing us together for a common purpose.

I don't discount the analysis and I think it's interesting, but it also presents a weird way to look at human history -- like 0.0 is the equilibrium point or desired state. The perfect moderate. One could look at the graph and say (as has been done here), "the reason we can't find common ground is the Republicans are off on an insane reactionary jaunt away from the march of human progress." You could also look at it and say, "The Republicans are really revolutionizing American governance, but Democrats won't get with the times." Without some anchor to say that 0.0 is 'right' in some way, what does it matter if Republicans are steeply steering away from Democrats? I prefer our politicians to be right to their being agreeable.

Of course, when it comes to repeating yourself, you are the D&D champ. What should we take away from that?

 

Bobby, your 20,000+ posts tell me where you stand.

 

Then there's no excuse for people misrepresenting it now is there?

 

Thank you BobbyTheMakeAmericaGreatAgain for educating us on what little difference there is between the beliefs and behaviors of Trump and Rand Paul voters!