An Era of Political Partisanship

It is painfully clear that there is a canyon-sized rift between Republicans and Democrats everywhere today. Turn on a lamestream media channel, and you'll see it from the likes of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rachel Maddow, and Ed Schultz. They hate the other end of the spectrum more than they hate the insurgents we're fighting overseas. Republicans are fear-mongering, scare-tactic using, bigoted racists. Democrats are spineless, hippie-loving, money-hounding, anti-American anarchists. It's a "fact of life". You're bred to have a strong distaste for the other side. However, it wasn't always this way. Believe it or not, up until 2000, divisive partisanship wasn't nearly as prominent as it is today.

The event that sparked the atmosphere in Washington today is the 2000 presidential election. Election Day and the 36-days of Hell that followed (as described by Karl Rove in Courage and Consequence) set the tone for the G.W. Bush Era, and that tone carried over into the Obama Era. You see, Democrats were so sore over the embittered Al Gore winning the popular vote and losing in the Electoral College because of Florida, that they never accepted Bush as a legitimate president. The love-him-or-hate-him Harry Reid was a rejector of Bush's legitimacy, as were Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt.

Now, in no way am I blaming the entire descent into name-calling and mutual degradation entirely on the left. If it was all them, the country would be dominated by the GOP once voters realized their immaturity. No, it takes two to tango, and Republicans have made two mistakes for every one the Democrats have.

I digress. The bottom line is, everything needs to change. Compromises need to be made. Critical legislation is being delayed or shot down because of a lack of cooperation. I disagree with the decision to block benefits to 9/11 aid workers. That was Republicans shooting it down because Democrats wouldn't compromise. Benefits for the unemployed took months to pass, again Republicans blocked them because of a lack of compromise. This is on both sides of the aisle, and it needs to change fast. It's been happening for 10 years, and instead of blaming the financial collapse on President Bush, let's blame it on that. It's because of the bitterness that the proposed regulations on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae fizzled and died, leading to the collapse of the financial market after bad nonprime and subprime mortgages were given.

For the good of America, please, put the differing views and petty games aside.