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I am so old I remember a time when Republicans and Democrats were friends...
@freemo
It could happen again.
@pthenq1 For most of Trump's president the "blue ones" were busy burning down cities across america. For weeks the sky was so dark from the car and city fires they started it was impossible to ignore.
I have never seen violence in my lifetime ever approaching the size or magnitude of what the democrats did during Trumps presidency.
That said, I dont disagree with your take on the Trump/Republican supporters either.
The extremists on both sides of the political aisle will keep being extreme, and keep going further, you're not wrong about that. But their support will drop off a cliff the farther they go.
I think we're way closer to the OP meme that we realize, especially if #Trump does not win the GOP nomination.
I do hope this is true.. too early to tell but I wont reject the idea either.
who is to blame aside, there is no doubt trump, partly because he lacked any sense of diplomacy in how he spoke, caused way more divide than unification.
In many ways Trumps biggest flaw was not his policies or making fun of the disabled or any of those things (which are valid criticisms in his their own right) but instead the fact that he seemed to intentionally want to create division. Not that other politicians like Biden dont do the same. But Trump took that to an extreme and seemed to be central to his whole campaign.
Biden definitely is not creating division.
You cannot agree with more than one of his policies, but you are not for that being accused of being an extremist, a criminal, an enemy of the order, an enemy of the state, or unamerican.
You are not despicable for your political color. You are still protected by the system. Etc.
Trump's tactic of creating an invisible internal enemy to gain power was a tactic copied from Goebbels. He did that. Biden definitely is not doing nothing like that at all.
Biden absolutely is creating division, but not at the same level that Trump is.
"You ain't black if you dont vote for me".. not to mention his extremely racist past as a whole, tends to create a lot of division out there in its own rights.
His complete disregard for personal freedom with the vaccine mandate stuff has also created a huge amount of decision.
The difference is Biden is a far better liar than Trump is. He can get up there and give a speech that sounds ok and you might be more able to accept his form of evil. Trump on the other hand was evil but he thought he wasnt and as such did very little to hide it.
I'm not mad at Joe. I honestly believe Hunter should sue the people who coerced his dad into accepting a job he did not want for elderly abuse.
As for Trump:
I believe he was a genius for the fact that he has
managed to live rent free in so many people's minds.
When it comes to the job of POTUS, the reason it is hard to find quality people for the job, is being POTUS requires having to *live* in D.C.
@freemo because you are white.
If you were Afro-American, I am sure you would notice a bit more violence than the one you get in your Barbie world.
Everybody deserve a Barbie world. No only trumpists. And living in one is not a bad thing.
It should be for everyone though
1) I am not white, I am native american
2) very racist and quite rude of you to judge me based on my race ragardless, worse yet when you dont know what my race is and assume.
3) native americans have a far bloodier history of being the victim of racism than any other group.
@freemo
It is a barricade talk to prove a point. No offense intended.
I am not Afro-American, but my family are. And several of them didn't have a good time in Trump's years
@pthenq1 apology accepted. I would highly advise against that approach in the future, it is an ugly one IMO and derails a conversation more oftne than it helps.
Anyway the key point here is I was a huge supporter of why they were protesting (better treatment of blacks was a big part of it). Its not the protests I objected to, it was the extreme violence that they carried out while they protested. I will never excuse violence in the name of a just cause, or any cause.
@freemo
Indeed.
But it is a consequence of previous violence. That happens when a debate can not use political channels.
If lot of Afro-Americans are being shot by cops and justice is not being served, and the debate is won for the people supporting the killing, well, some of the other side could feel they are excluded from the system.
People excluded from the system tends to not care regarding the system's health. When the tendency persists, you could see violence, and when the violence is too much, it is called revolution.
It is what happened with Floyd's killing. I believe that the good ones won and if you pay attention the violence subsided.
Good old democracy channeling the political debate.
@pthenq1 I'd be hesitant to excuse one violence because of other violence, though you arent wrong.
The truth is in many ways there has been a race war in the USA that goes back long before the generation alive. whites and their supporters have long since murdered or abused blacks, and blacks and their supporters have long since attacked and abused whites. Its a vicious circle and like any long fought war there is a lot of hate on both sides for the other and a lot of violence carried out in that name.
I would never claim whites are innocent or that we didnt do a lot of (if not most of) the invoking with the slavery and the lynching, and chauvin an all the rest. There is also no shortage of black violence against "the establishment" (whites) in one sense or another and the violence during the protests was just one example of that.
In the end we wont solve any of this mess if you keep accepting or excusing any part of the circle of hate. That means being sternly against the violence of one side just as much as you are against the violence of the other. Yes this could have been stopped if Chauvin wasnt a murderer, then we wouldnt have had protests... just as the protestors could have no burned down homes and businesses and cars.
The blame game never works, everything that is is the result of an endless chain of cause and effect. We cant focus at the tip of the spear but we rather need to recognize the whole chain and how every link in that chain is wrong.
His racist comment was the very first time ive seen him do that in all the time I knew him. I cant say I liked that tactic but it had less hate in it than most racism at least I guess ::shrug::... it is a shame that the first time your interacting with him is with that message honestly.
Either way I understand your reaction given the extent of violence we all went through at the hands of democrats for 4 years, even myself who opposed Trump got a lot of abuse from that side of the table.
@freemo @saitei
I am a fellow American living in California. No everybody agree, but I think California is still part of the States.
Trump years created a lot of violence in both sides of the political spectrum.
I see people coming to their senses now. It doesn't mean agreement. Just normal political non violent debate.
I saw lot of violence against minorities in Trump years. In that matter things are better now.
Oh you live in california... sorry I did not know this. For some reason I cant recall now I thought you lived in spain.
One could argue California is their own country, and they wouldnt be too far from the truth. But no I will give you credit as an American then.
That said im sure the democrats rioted in cali like they did on the east coast so much. California pretty strongly leans democrat so there wasnt much need for clashes I would think.
They only burned part of Berkeley University as part of the debate to stop some Nazi if giving an alt right conference. I think it was Milo Yiannopoulos.
But it is ok. Nazis cannot spread violence and not getting involved.
We have our fair rate of republicans, but we don't think you are un American if you like Trump... They are not the enemy.
I thought like you, but now I realized I was wrong. The paradox of the tolerance and all that.
Can you name a time where Nazis came to power where they werent first censored en masse? In germany they were extremely unpopular and even persecuted before the popular sentiment suddenly shifted and they rose to power. We see a huge upsurge recently of racist authoritarian types like nazis that seems very clearly to be a result of recent censorship efforts by social media and mainstream news generally having bias. I see the same as largely the pattern around the world, authoritarian racist regimes always seem to be preceeded by an attempt of censorship that directly results in attention and ultimately a rise of power being focused on the bad agents such as nazis.
I dont entierly disagree with the idea that Trump would have potentially lead to an autoritative regime, its entierly possible. It is certainly true his supporters at least have a lot of racism to go around (not all, but a lot of them).
Funny thing is you are just proving my point. Trump was censored or otherwise clearly biased against in the media. This is the very reason his supporters grew so fanatical in the first place. So this case proves my point more than anything. Even now his supporters seem more extreme than ever.
But that is the thing. We do not have to agree on everything or else be enemies!
That was implicit in all the history of United States. From the more perfect Union and even before.
The problem was that Trump, in order to win, invoked people's demons and fears creating the "us vs them" idea.
That had consequences. And they happened.
"Trump years" didn't really create the violence, it existed prior to him being elected. The media just suddenly had a great scapegoat to excuse any and all violence against the people they disagree with.
I've seen a lot of violence against ordinary white people too. But for some reason nobody cares when the whites are being disenfranchised, even though they built most of the modern world, and most of the modern infra you're using *right now* to shit on them.
Since I have worked in IT out of california many times my view of californias is going to be very skewed as my "sample" is not really the general population.
That said I have found californians to be extreme democrats usually favoring very excessive regulation to solve all of lifes problems. I would laugh at Cali when i was there because everything you bought and everything you did usually accompanied with fine print at the bottom of a sign that was half the length of the sign. I remember going to a park once and needed a lawyer to interpret the small-print at the bottom of the visitors welcome sign about all the things you cant do.
That said while I strongly disagree with the authoritative approach californians tend to embrace I wouldnt personally describe them as incapable of nuance, where they fail is their response to that nuance. They are often very bright people (in my circles) and more than capable to hold an intelligent well detailed argument. But in the end they just have their priorities all backwards where getting people to conform is more important than personal freedoms.
I also can't really take them seriously on their values of human beings given their lunatic views on gender and sexuality. LGBTQIAPP++ (or whatever nightmare they've made it into now) acceptance has been an atrocity for the human race.
We have that quality. Californians are Awesome people. 
I understand people misunderstanding strong regulations.
One way to see it is that you are free and own of your destiny. The world is not a place that you must crash while you look for self realization though.
So other people discovered, for example, that car pollution emissions are bad. And they did something about it. Therefore you will follow the law about using cars with cathalitics gas treatment and buying expensive gas super purified, either you believe in science or not, believe in global warming or not, etc.
Follow the regulations than older people than you or just better people than you put in place. Your self discovery is not required. And that's freedom.
You get this, you get California.
That doesn't sound like something I would want to spread anywhere.
@freemo
I don't see the blue one getting crazy.
Republicans have all the internal believers in conspirational and so on.
They hate. As we all can see in Fox news.
No matter. The global warming consequences will make them return to their senses...