William, do you believe the real divide lies between the two political parties themselves, or between the individuals within them? From where I sit, I see remarkably little difference among the people I know on either side. Strip away the noise of the extremes, and most folks are far more alike than the parties, or the pundits, want to admit.
Yes, each party broadcasts a set of ideological aims, often shaped by its most radical voices. But those voices don’t speak for the majority. And it’s time the majority reminded their parties of that.
Clinging with white-knuckled loyalty to beliefs that don’t truly belong to you, beliefs important only to a loud and narrow few, is how we’ve landed in this fractured state. It leads to alienating our own neighbors through name-calling and stoking fears that rarely, if ever, come to pass. We've heard the doomsday warnings so often, they’ve become background noise, like the ever-looming threat of nuclear war: real, yes, but hollow from overuse.
Fear has a short shelf life. And when it expires, all that's left is distrust.
If we want to pull back from the brink, we need to stop outsourcing our convictions to party platforms and start speaking up as individuals. Not as partisans. Not as echo chambers. But as people who still believe in common sense and common ground. I didn't want to preach, but...I fear irreparable backlash from too much "I'm anti-," and not enough "I'm for," when the earlier is not an honest nor realistic accounting of where American's are. I'm a bit like Cynthia, I think the two-party system is DOA. A moderate or centrist party should be formed, and lets just see how many radical this' or thats' we really have. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there's about 10% on each side. Can our political systems survive that kind of knowledge and transparency, or are we doomed to believe our neighbors are the boogey man forever? I think this is a question of the survival of our two-party system.
Yes, each party broadcasts a set of ideological aims, often shaped by its most radical voices. But those voices don’t speak for the majority. And it’s time the majority reminded their parties of that.
Clinging with white-knuckled loyalty to beliefs that don’t truly belong to you, beliefs important only to a loud and narrow few, is how we’ve landed in this fractured state. It leads to alienating our own neighbors through name-calling and stoking fears that rarely, if ever, come to pass. We've heard the doomsday warnings so often, they’ve become background noise, like the ever-looming threat of nuclear war: real, yes, but hollow from overuse.
Fear has a short shelf life. And when it expires, all that's left is distrust.
If we want to pull back from the brink, we need to stop outsourcing our convictions to party platforms and start speaking up as individuals. Not as partisans. Not as echo chambers. But as people who still believe in common sense and common ground. I didn't want to preach, but...I fear irreparable backlash from too much "I'm anti-," and not enough "I'm for," when the earlier is not an honest nor realistic accounting of where American's are. I'm a bit like Cynthia, I think the two-party system is DOA. A moderate or centrist party should be formed, and lets just see how many radical this' or thats' we really have. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there's about 10% on each side. Can our political systems survive that kind of knowledge and transparency, or are we doomed to believe our neighbors are the boogey man forever? I think this is a question of the survival of our two-party system.