I've never been one for extreme partisanship, I think it is bad for the country. But the partisanship has never been this bad before, and while there is debate and disagreement and varying viewpoints within the Democratic party, the Republicans are threatening their members to line up solidly against anything that can score them political points in November or gain contributions from big business.
There's been no good faith negotiation on any matters of reform coming from the Republican party, and the rhetoric coming from the official Republican Party is beyond hyperbolic, divisive, and factually untrue.
Worse, they don't mean a word they say. Recently they propose ideas and vote against them. They campaign and state as their party platform for DECADES certain ideas, and some run for President based on those ideas. When those ideas are suggested by the Democrats to be included in legislation, they won't vote for it. Worse, there have been instances of Republicans calling those same ideas "unconstitutional".
Mitt Romney is one great example. Massachusetts health care endorsed by Romney is more liberal than the kind passed by Congress, but he and his party called it "unconstitutional".
There's no internal consistency. There's no external consistency. There's no principled stance against anything. There is no honesty... it's just been one long campaign tactic since Obama was elected. And the previous election was the most disgusting I've ever seen and the lowest I've seen any political party go in my adult lifetime. What the candidates actually said was bitter, scornful, divisive, not to mention slanderous and factually wrong to a huge degree. I expected better of McCain, who I'd never seen sink so far before.
Before the election I was excited... I was like, well, there's two excellent candidates. Maybe we will have some enlightened discourse and a frank exchange of ideas! McCain used to be the kind of Republican I'd be willing to vote for. I support good moderate candidates and bipartisan exchanges.
Things went downhill when McCain sold out to the ****oo wing of the tea party fringe of the republican right-wing, and picked Palin. The rhetoric and the absurdity has spiraled downhill ever since.
Bush-Kerry wasn't nearly this bad. Bush-Gore wasn't nearly this bad. Sure there were lies and hyperbole, but I remember the rhetoric being much more civilized, and the stances that Bush campaigned on didn't seem nearly this bizarre. Some I strongly disagree with, but still.
I remember that Bush versus McCain was a conservative (Bush) versus a moderate (McCain) battle. But these days it seems like the McCain/Palin/Steele/Boehner Republicans have gone way off the Dick Cheney deep end into tea party wacko and armed militia territory. These folks make Bush look a hell of a lot better, and I never once thought I'd have a worse opinion of a politician than I had of Bush.
Bush's actual policies were bad, but I never heard him refer to his opponent as a socialist, terrorist-lover, or "Nazi" policy supporter ("oh no, I didn't say he was a Nazi, I said he supported policies that the Nazis did. Huge difference.)
There was civility. It went completely gone by the time McCain's team picked Palin. I don't know how much the two might relate to the other, but I have a strong feeling one influenced the other.
Moderate republicans and people who vote Republican are going independent by the droves, and conservative, religious types are flocking to the tea party. The Republican party isn't honest or mainstream enough for moderate Republicans, and it doesn't even follow through on the wacko rhetoric enough to please the fringe movement, so they're going Tea Party.
They will gain seats, but they are shooting themselves in the foot among all principled conservatives and moderates of all stripes. The only people they are winning over are the people who will always vote Republican, no matter what.
