Is there are plenty of right wing nuts in it, too. They'll destroy a Democratic administration from the inside, too. Or, in the case of the military (where the right wing are an easy majority), outright rebellion.

For this same reason, I was cringing at hecklers are Republican town halls. I knew they'd do it, too. And they have. Just today, a Democratic Representative in CA was drowned out by a hostile crowd chanting "we love Trump" -- in her home district (I think).

People need to get a grip and be civil -- disagree without being disagreeable. Otherwise the system is going to break down, and we'll end up like Germany in 1930s. And that ends badly. (I know this personally.)

We heard lots of claims about the (R) equivalent of moles and people thwarting Obama, but never at this level. I think there are two reasons for this.

(1) The country's more polarized now than before: While (R) often hated Obama, much of what got reported here was highly metonymic. The rightmost 20% were often quoted and those views attributed to the remaining 80%. (We'd call that stereotyping if done by others, but we don't stereotype so it can't be that.) Both sides are more polarized now than they were a year ago, and that's saying something. There's enough research and pondering what happens when society's become polarized, and we're following the mold. If you want to destroy a society, polarize it, help it nurse the polarization, and watch it implode. Russia did a bit of that, but nobody's forcing us to be polarized and to take what they're offering.

(2) Government, esp. the federal government, has a higher level of (D) than (R). So if 10% of the (R) under Obama wanted to destroy his presidency, that's a much smaller number than in 10% of the (D) under Trump wants to destroy his presidency.


I personally can't get distraught over some of the way (R) politicians and Trump ignore (D) protesters, or the way some (R) protesters drown out and shut down (D) politicians. I'm unattached enough to remember how the tea-partiers were viewed, the way that many (D) politicians simply said they weren't about to represent that part of their constituency. This didn't strike me as unreasonable at the time, even if my BIL was a tea partier. I disliked intensely how they decided to arrogate public space to their own cause and shut down the occasional (D), or heckle them for no purpose but to disrupt. Now that the polarity of the situation's reversed, I'm sticking to my principles: I assume that (R) will rule out part of their population as viable members of a constituency that really need to be heard and find that not unreasonable. I object when (D) protesters decide to arrogate to themselves public space for their own cause and shut down (R) politicians. Neither side has more worth as human beings. I don't fall for the "the worst of us is better than the best of them." I can't be that tribal, to borrow the term from another poster in another thread that I saw today, to fail to note that what my BIL said 8 years ago is often coming out of the mouth of (D) partisans with very few changes.

Yet.

I concur the actions of radicals on both sides are not productive. I worked as a staffer in Congress for the overwhelming majority of my life. 95% of the stuff they do is non-partisan, or should be. But all we focus on now is the 5%.

And it will lead to the destruction of our country. I think it is inevitable unless we change.

In fact, I'm strangely leaning to a completely defanged federal government. Let states or groups of states have social programs. If Texas wants white bigots to run things, let them. Just make sure normal people can move away with some ease. And presumably our troglodytes will move there.

We'll have a joint military and joint money, but other than the very basics, nothing federal.

Maybe I'm becoming a libertarian after 90.