Quote:Well, say what you want about Clinton/Gingrich, but things still got done back then.  Sure, we had a government shutdown when the Speaker of the House was put on the back of the plane, but they eventually got together, hammered things out, and had the US on track continuing through 8 years of peace and prosperity.  Perhaps when you're having an affair while accusing the president of the same, you build a kinship.

 

As for our founding fathers, I've read up on some of the things they used to say about each other while trying to get elected, and it's easily on par with the ridiculous things their progeny accuses each other of these days. All the while building a unique Republic and molding it on the fly.

 

The dude on the 20 dollar bill once completely ignored a Supreme court decision - try doing that these days.

 

I think Eric's onto something with things changing after 9/11.  But it might not be the event that did it, just the point in time when social media created an environment where we could all get into our own echo chambers and convince ourselves that everyone else was so, very, very, wrong.  They must be, since I have an entire network of people who think EXACTLY like me. 

 

Or, should I say, that I think exactly like them - there is a difference.

 

That was the last Congress who actually understood what they were sent there to do.  We've had no better Congress since those Clinton had during his second term.

 

The sensationalism and polarization was there well before 9/11.

 

The 90s were filled with colorful buzzwords and phrases eagerly lapped up by the rising generation of narcissists and egocentrics seeking pseudoknowledge.  Every event that occurred was labeled "unprecedented" by an ever increasingly untrustable and unapologetically biased media.  We were sold that we "entitled" to anything and everything under the sun, political leaders suffering delusions of grandeur were fawned over by the media for their perceived "gravitas", and of course... every evil known to man was rooted in a "vast right wing conspiracy."  Every ridiculous word uttered with a straight face, of course, as if it were gospel.  The wise chuckled, but as they chuckled and thought it would do no harm... others actually fell for it.  The seeds were being planted that have grown into the polarization we have today.

 

Honestly, the youth of America who have lived only during the presidencies of Bush, Clinton, and Obama unfortunately have not seen this country's government or leadership at their best, to say the least.  I can understand why some would become jaded.  But you have to go farther back in history to learn the lessons of what truly works and what doesn't.  We were founded on the best of the best self governing principles that were chosen because they were proven to have worked, yet we have begun to turn back to policies that have repeatedly failed throughout the history of man.  Yet those who think they are the smartest people in the room, today's egocentric and narcissistic leaders, think the repeated failures of the policies they continue to press despite their harm were due to themselves not being around to "get it right" before now.  That somehow our being blessed with their presence will somehow make bad policy work the next go round.

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