IMHO gerrymandering is a big contributor to the radicalization of US politics. Most electing districts have been designed to ensure that one party is essentially guaranteed to win it.
I would have to disagree with this. The first and foremost contribution to the radicalization is the media which prefers ‘dramatic heartrending’ stories to the facts. They will dress up anything to an extreme, including political positions. Both sides do it. They would rather concentrate on extreme points of view of the constituents rather than the facts. The media also prefers to address the party not the platform… Bush’s stimulus was bad and Obama’s good… because why? In many cases, politicians then take extreme positions to play to the ends and figure that the middle is not worth going for. The result being that the center, which happens to be the majority, is marginalized.
Another item that contributes to the radicalization is that you can’t vote for members of political parties outside of your party affiliation during the primary. The political party’s position on this is that people from the opposing political party would vote for someone to sabotage the political parties win. The last part of that sentence is important. The political party is more concerned with their win than what the voters really want. They strive to stay in power, no to represent the people of the country. I am not going to throw away my vote just to give the political party I am affiliated with, a better chance. I would vote as I always do, for the candidate that I feel would be better for the country.
Allan, you have to recognize that the radical right is better at it.
Actually, the left is. If you can recognize their drivel as drivel without thinking about it.. then you know they aren’t that good. If you are tempted to accept it as the truth, then you know they are good at dressing up the drivel to make it acceptable. It is the essence of being a good salesmen and to get the mark to not think about their purchase.
by drivel, I mean empty rhetoric, polemic and vitriol…
