"Bipartisanship is just another word for one party rule."

I recently reread Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", and that particular quote struck me hard, as a hard truth.

We have consistently seen, over the past half century, an increasing reliance upon getting a "bipartisan" consensus on issues. This trend truly picked up steam during the eighties, under Reagan. Essentially what we have seen is the 'Pugs stake out ever increasingly extreme positions, and in an effort to be "bipartisan" the Dems acquiesce to part or all of these positions. Not to mention the simple fact that on major issues of foreign policy, namely wars, Dems and 'Pugs go forth in near complete agreement. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, all of these and more have been launched with bipartisan support.

This sort of dynamic has led our country away from a robust debate over various issues, where each side stakes out their positions, towards an ever increasing slide to the right, a slide so far that now we see a Democratic administration whose policy positions are to the right of Eisenhower.

Are there still differences between the two parties, yes. But those differences have become increasingly small over the years, to the point now where the debate on issues such as Social Security and Medicare isn't whether to cut them or not, but rather just a degree of how much they are to be cut.

Bipartisanship is killing this country, it is indeed nothing more than another name for one party rule, and that one party is comprised of the rich and powerful elite. Our voices, the voices of the poor, the working class, is no longer heard or considered in this "bipartisan" government.

It is time for us to bury bipartisanship, and instead embrace true change, a government that listens to different voice, voices not compromised by the bipartisan manner of carrying out government. Otherwise, we will simply continue to suffer under one party rule, never a good thing.

but when the other party has jumped off the right wing, it is impossible to compromise.

Normally in a civil society, compromise is a good thing.

But bipartisanship isn't compromise, it is one party following the other deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, rather than standing up and fighting for what is right.

Most of the democratic party has loyally followed the republican party farther and farther to the right consistently over the past 40 years too as the republican party constantly pulled the entire political spectrum to the right.

Most of the democratic party has accepted all of the efforts to move our entire political framework to the right and has failed entirely to anchor it where it was or pull it back to the left.

By going along with republican efforts and by allowing the political spectrum to keep moving to the right, by often helping to move the entire political landscape farther to the right again and again, conservative and so-called moderate democrats have aided republicans. They have advanced republican values instead of standing up for core democratic values.

This bi-partisan move to the right is so pronounced that the left wing inside the democratic party has been stunted and is now withered. The left wing of our party is ridiculed even by leaders within our own party and has very little remaining influence, especially compared to the conservatives and so-called 'moderates' within our party, with their willingness to often give the right what they want. The left wing of our party finds themselves easily ignored, often insulted, and frequently scapegoated by both parties. They have become the boogieman that is said to be so powerful that they are responsible for everything that goes wrong while at the same time the left wing is kept so powerless they can't change anything or get any of their goals implemented.