(02-09-2021, 08:40 AM)Lucky2Last Wrote:

(02-09-2021, 08:11 AM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: If anyone poses a response in this thread that includes something like, "but the liberals" or "but the conservatives," then you are part of the problem. You have to acknowledge that this rift is caused by both sides. Not just one or the other. If you can't see this then you are biased and contributing to this divide.

Obviously, in any relationship, both parties contribute to some disfunction in the relationship, even if it's co-dependence. That doesn't mean both parties are equally complicit in deterioration of the relationship. Until liberals reject the platforms and tenants of the progressives, this issue is going to get worse. This is no longer a conservatives vs. liberals argument. Only the uninformed believe that. Leftists are a different beast entirely, and until enough people wake up to what's going on, they are going to continue to demonize their ideological opponents. You can't see that, dude? You can't see the concerted effort to obliterate the conservative position? 

The goal for progressives, is to move the Overton window as far left as possible. Crush the right in this country, then deal with the liberals. Liberals find them useful for now, but for how long? If you listen to what the progressives are saying, they are trying to push the parties into liberal vs progressive, then they will try to snuff out the liberals. Global socialism is the only answer. The ends justify the means. Political power is the only goal. That's radical. You will never find unity with that group, yet they are increasingly given a voice in the Democratic party.

I agree that liberals should denounce the progressive wing of the Democratic party, just like I believe conservatives should reject the Trumpist wing of the Republican party. Hardcore Trump supporters, (not the everyday Joe that voted for Trump as an option to Joe Biden,) but the real followers and apologist to everything he did are every bit as dangerous to this country as the left wing progressives. We need to get back to the days when Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were the faces of the parties and we didn't have radicals at both ends of the spectrum. People back then may not have liked one another's politics, but they never got nasty and they were still able to work together to get things done. 

I do see that leftist are ruining this country just as I see that Trump and his followers have hijacked what I used to see as true Republican issues and values and they've turned it into something I can't even recognize. The pendulum swings both ways and people that can't see that and recognize their own biases, frankly worry me. Both sides play off of one another's most radical groups and by bickering back and forth and getting so much media coverage, they are actually making one another stronger. People are getting the impression that these fringe groups are way larger than they actually are. Thus they join the bandwagon in order to fight off the perceived enemy. It was bad when Obama was in office, but when Trump became president, it got worse by ten fold. He made the progressives out to be a much, much larger group than they actually were and his followers believed everything he said, no matter how ridiculous and false it was. Now, we're at an all-time low. No one trust anything they see or read that is out of their comfort zone, because they got suckered into the propaganda spewed out by the progressives and the Trumpist. I don't know if there is any way to come back from this either.

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