Well, while I agree with your assessment of the individuals you post here, how is it any different than the debate skills of people in the democrat party like: Spoiler or Spoiler or Spoiler or Spoiler I mean come on man!!!! BOTH sides have shrill idiots who pander to their base. BOTH sides are guilty of pointing fingers (including myself at times). NEITHER side has a monopoly on cool, calm, collected reasoning.
This illustrates one of the things that really bugs me about political discourse today: We basically treat it the way we do pro sports. Instead of addressing the current problem raised by ima (a Republican, if I'm not mistaken) and discussing how we got here and ways to fix it, it's just a pissing match of, "YOUR SIDE IS JUST AS BAD!111!!!" There was a Stanford paper published a few years ago that showed that in 1960, when Democrats and Republicans were surveyed about whether they would be upset if their child married a person belonging to the other party, only about 5% of respondents on both sides answered 'Yes'. By 2010 that number rose to like 50% among Republicans and 33% among Democrats. It really manifests itself when you look at positions that by all rights shouldn't be partisan at all, but should come down to an individual's personal beliefs. Abortion's one; Republicans didn't care about it at all until what, five years after Roe v. Wade? Climate change is another. Gay marriage should only matter insofar as whether or not you believe government should be involved in marriage at all. Why are liberals, who tend to be the biggest proponents of higher education for the purpose of (among other things) exposing kids to diversity and scary ideas, and removing them from their comfort zones, supporters of college safe-spaces and anti-microaggression bull*****? It makes no sense to me. It's the kind of thinking that's helped turned politics into the freaking circus it is today.
I would completely disagree with your characterization of my argument as stating "YOUR JUST AS BAD"! While I am conservative leaning, my comment STARTED with an acknowledgement that Ima's observation was true. It was just incomplete. If you fail to acknowledge ALL parties complicity in this destruction of public discourse you we will be unable to properly diagnose what has happened and more importantly what can be done about it. My own opinion is that it started with the idea of the 24 hour news cycle becoming profit centers. Of course this is just part of it but it starts and ends there.
If I misinterpreted your argument I apologize, but considering you countered ima (again, a Republican) bemoaning the shift in conservative media from personalities like William F. Buckley to Hannity, Coulter, and O'Reilly (members of the media) with a post about the "debate skills" of Pelosi and Reid (politicians) without contrasting them against Democrats politcians of the past, I think you can forgive me the misinterpretation.
Really? I have to compare Pelosi and Reid to the likes of LBJ and Kennedy or Tip Oneill in order for you to get my point? You aren't worldly enough to figure out who I'm comparing them to or how far that party has fallen as well? Really?
Really? It's not about what I can or can't figure out, it's that if you don't want to make yourself appear guilty of childish partisan hackery (the accusation leveled here), when b****ing about the current crop of liberal politicians and commentators you need to give some indication of Dem/left wing politicians you've admired in the past. Especially in light of the fact that the post you were responding to originally was invoking the memory of William F. Buckley. Otherwise it's just going to sound as though you're crowing, "lololol, but demz suck too! PWND," and you're going to leave yourself open to misinterpretation. This is basic stuff, it's actually a bit surprising to me that you need it explained to you.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disqualifying <a href="https://t.co/BBDJnqx3dc">pic.twitter.com/BBDJnqx3dc</a></p>— Elliott Schwartz (@elliosch) <a href="https://twitter.com/elliosch/status/699271500050907137">February 15, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
forgot that GWB is pretty good at this stuff <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OSc9DetCpdA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
He is so much better than Jeb at speaking and campaigning. Jeb is dull as dirt compared to GWB. Bush for all his failures is an underrated communicator and is fantastic at connecting with people.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w-RXSVVnOhA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
GW Bush was comfortable with himself and it showed. The man was limited when it came to policy but people liked him as a person.
That is the problem right there. People pick the person they like more instead of who would be better at the elected position.
It really speaks to the bigger issue of civic involvement in this country; Texas, by the way, is dead last in the country in many categories regarding civic involvement. Politics and government, for so many citizens, has become an after thought; a chore if you will. If they haven't followed this election cycle, then it's simply human nature to go with the candidate that resonates with who you are as a human being from 30 second clips of them shouting buzz word phrases read from a teleprompter. Think about this for a second... in Texas public schools, the first time a student takes a course that is exclusively about government, is in their SENIOR YEAR of high school. Insane. The Greeks would learn about, and partake in, government as early as 6 years of age. Why is it that students aren't forced to learn about the fundamental workings of their government at an earlier age? Take foreign languages for example.. we take Spanish/French language courses in high school as well. The Chinese and Japanese have their students take courses in English in the 2nd grade. Thoughts?
Bush was an awesome communicator until he actually got into office. I personally think the weight of the job got to him immediately.
Damn, he is really good. That speech was by far better then any I have heard this year from any of the candidates. That's with saying that I am the farthest thing from being a fan of Bush. Straight smooth talker. Polished, charming, funny, personable feel good speech that doesn't even focus on any specific topics. Current and future candidates need to be taking notes.
I like this town hall format so much better. It finally gives someone like Ben Carson time to speak (although I'm not sure about some of his ideas). But those ridiculous shouting-over-each-other debates suck.
this, Anderson Cooper does a good job, because he gets out of the way most moderators can't help wanting to interrupt or real time "fact check" to show how clever they are, or because they think it's their job to shape the narrative
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2016 in one vine <a href="https://t.co/2YcyT18KL9">https://t.co/2YcyT18KL9</a></p>— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) <a href="https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/700323415593455616">February 18, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
