No matter who wins, both sides should reconcile

[WhiteMousse]

I think that's a bit self-serving and implausible (you're always better off assuming that people who disagree with you are people, with the same motivations and such that you have). People have less respect for Trump as a human than they did for W, HW, or Reagan because he is a less respectable person. Doesn't seem remotely mysterious to me. He's been unfaithful to his families, he lies constantly, he threatens our country in more serious ways, he is lazier (which translates to him being embarrassingly clueless on all policy matters and many mistakes), he's more corrupt and venal, etc. The mystery is why anyone would have more respect (or less disdain) for him than they have for other Republican presidents (as bad as they've been on policy).

Well I can tell you that's why I don't like him.

But I think morality for most people on the left and right (not saying this about you) have come to view morality as a very modular kind of construct, like legos. You take off whatever part you want and replace it with another one on a whim. I have a hard time believing that the majority of people on the left hate Trump because he's a wicked person. I think that's what gets showcased because it's pretty easy to demonstrate, but I believe it has much, much more to do with the fact that he's on the other team, and that dynamic is exacerbated greatly by the fact that he won unexpectedly. I think that most people on the left would have loved Trump, every bit as much as the people on the right do now, if he had gone as democrat. And I also believe that the conservatives would have been on their high horses about him, denouncing him and marveling that others would support him. They would have used hamfisted Christianity all day long. Everything would have been reversed. It's always like this, and it's like it on both sides. The Senate was recorded as saying that a SC Justice should not be put in at the end of a presidential term, when Obama was president. But here they are stammering and shying away from recorded, documented evidence as they do a complete about face.

As for W and HW I agree that people speak highly of them NOW, but I believe that's just a matter of time weathering. People are saying Trump is the worst president in the history of America. They said the exact same thing about W. Conservatives said that about Clinton after the Lewinski thing. Whoever the political opponent is right now, is the scourge of the earth.

I know it probably seems like I'm siding with conservatives but I realize they do it too. Biden is not as bad as Trump in terms of character, honesty, etc. The sanctimony of the increasingly militant left has been grinding on me but I will admit when Trump started shitting all over Biden's son in the first debate I was pissed. I've mentioned several times that I would have voted for Biden if he'd gone with a different running mate. And people on the right are saying he's a pedophile and the scum of the earth without even a string of thought to back that up. If the candidate had been Bernie they would have done it to him too. I realize I could be wrong about this, and I value your opinion on these matters. In my estimation, the who's are almost irrelevant.
Remember when Rubio started to become a bit of a star? The left jumped on him hard because they thought he could threaten him. They backed way off when they realized he wasn't going to really do anything, and the right has done exact same thing to AOC, only they've been worse because she continues to be a threat to their share of the country. They call her stupid, they make fun of her looks (I've no clue why), and they ridicule her ideas with a very "strain the gnat and swallow the camel" kind of scrutiny.

Red vs Blue. That's it. It's a football game. And it's getting worse every day.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Well I can tell you that's why I don't like him.

But I think morality for most people on the left and right (not saying this about you) have come to view morality as a very modular kind of construct, like legos. You take off whatever part you want and replace it with another one on a whim. I have a hard time believing that the majority of people on the left hate Trump because he's a wicked person. I think that's what gets showcased because it's pretty easy to demonstrate, but I believe it has much, much more to do with the fact that he's on the other team, and that dynamic is exacerbated greatly by the fact that he won unexpectedly. I think that most people on the left would have loved Trump, every bit as much as the people on the right do now, if he had gone as democrat. And I also believe that the conservatives would have been on their high horses about him, denouncing him and marveling that others would support him. They would have used hamfisted Christianity all day long. Everything would have been reversed. It's always like this, and it's like it on both sides. The Senate was recorded as saying that a SC Justice should not be put in at the end of a presidential term, when Obama was president. But here they are stammering and shying away from recorded, documented evidence as they do a complete about face.

As for W and HW I agree that people speak highly of them NOW, but I believe that's just a matter of time weathering. People are saying Trump is the worst president in the history of America. They said the exact same thing about W. Conservatives said that about Clinton after the Lewinski thing. Whoever the political opponent is right now, is the scourge of the earth.

I strongly disagree with some of this. No doubt that (party supporters) will dislike (presidential candidate of the other party) always. And recency is a factor (which is an alternative to your theory). But I don't think that there's any way that the left would embrace someone like that just because he tried to claim he was on their side. There are real differences in the two major political coalitions, and especially in the way they react to the release of negative information about someone they see as being on their side. Outside of a certain minority faction, there isn't the sense on the left that the kind of secular world is against them, and liberals generally consume non-partisan media (I'm aware that many rightists deeply believe that the MSM is as partisan as Breitbart or something, but that's simply not true). Good comparison would be Avenati. Some of the left seemed initially to be drawn to him, but then when people started finding out what kind of person he was, you didn't see them start claiming that the media was out to get him and defend him harder.

I think if you look at the numbers, you'll see that HW was just not as hated as W or Trump, even at the time. Liberals at the time didn't have a problem with, say, finding out that their kid was dating a Republican, the way they do now. As for W and Trump, they both took office with things going pretty well and left/will leave office with the country in shambles, in part (and, yes, in both cases, it's only in part) due to their own incompetence. So I think it's perfectly understandable and legitimate to think that both of them are among the worst presidents we've had. I think you'd respond that people would say that's true whether it were true or not, which I would grant to some extent, but in this case, I think it really is true. I think there's been a change in the dominant faction on the right that makes it uniquely incapable of governing a modern country (the anti-reality, conspiracy theorist faction has gone from a fringe part of the right that hated the governing right as much as they hated the left to the dominant faction--something for the left to keep an eye out for, BTW).

I know it probably seems like I'm siding with conservatives but I realize they do it too. Biden is not as bad as Trump in terms of character, honesty, etc. The sanctimony of the increasingly militant left has been grinding on me but I will admit when Trump started shitting all over Biden's son in the first debate I was pissed. I've mentioned several times that I would have voted for Biden if he'd gone with a different running mate. And people on the right are saying he's a pedophile and the scum of the earth without even a string of thought to back that up. If the candidate had been Bernie they would have done it to him too. I realize I could be wrong about this, and I value your opinion on these matters. In my estimation, the who's are almost irrelevant.

Again, I don't think it's symmetrical. As an experiment, try posing as a leftist and calling Crenshaw or whomever Trump's likely successor is of being a pedophile or of having regularly had people murdered. I think you'll quickly get dismissed by the left. And I think if a prominent liberal tried that, he'd be disavowed by the mainstream left.

Remember when Rubio started to become a bit of a star? The left jumped on him hard because they thought he could threaten him. They backed way off when they realized he wasn't going to really do anything, and the right has done exact same thing to AOC, only they've been worse because she continues to be a threat to their share of the country. They call her stupid, they make fun of her looks (I've no clue why), and they ridicule her ideas with a very "strain the gnat and swallow the camel" kind of scrutiny.

You're right that the left was worried about Rubio, but no one started calling him a pedophile or murderer. Just a kind of oily phony who wasn't that smart. I think AOC gets a lot of coverage in the right media because they think she's more threatening to their base than Biden is. But anyway, overall, I think you make some decent points (of course the Xes will dislike any prominent Y, and the more threatening they are, the more they'll be disliked) but you go too far with them (the left and right are not the same in how they process this stuff, and reality does matter).

 

[rocketskates]

Yeah but just remember the last time the Blue States and Red States fought... The red-necked country boys got their asses handed to them and to this day the South has yet to fully recover.

Not looking to get into a north/south debate or defend the confederacy, but, historically speaking the south held their own quite well and won some major battles. The north just had superior industry and resources.

 

[evansusmc2]

At this point I think Trump should just concede. Just ride off into the sunset. He’s too old to be dealing with this bullshit.

This razor thin election would be a small victory by comparison to any election in recent times. Just let it go.

 

[no fat chicks]

CNN did it. They need to stop propagandizing. Fox News actually did it first, but they did it with a pathetic wink and a smirk assuming everybody knew they were full of shit on some stuff. CNN is dangerous. Making crazy people.

Ever go into the comments section on a fox news story? I follow both cnn and fox on Facebook. By large margins the fox people seem way more unhinged.
Probably because as you pointed out they've been at it longer.

I really think we need to see more open discussion and empathy for the other sides beliefs. Going in realizing that both of you want what we believe is best for everyone and not some malicious goals of destroying everything.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Reconcile? I suspect there are a lot of Trump supporters who, at this very moment, are Googling, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to building a Dirty Bomb". On a computer who's screen-saver is a picture of Timothy McVeigh...