Tulsi Gabbard: I’m leaving the Democratic Party

[Dill]

(11-08-2022, 05:43 AM)hollodero Wrote: For this is the typical liberal, he says what's true and righteous and whoever disagrees gets laughed at, called uninformed or a bigot or indeed often a racist or at the very least someone who is very wrong and needs to be educated (that would be your thing). And it's not always fair. In short, your side tends to be overly condescending and again there's no way to convince you of that, I am aware, even though pretty much any debate here or anywhere looks like clear evidence of that to me. Both sides carry this extreme black and white worldview around and are more concerned with scoring points for their own side than to actually have a meaningful exchange. Yeah Americans from different aisles do not really talk to each other any longer, you just fight with each other, with extreme rhetoric that kills all chance of any convergence and is in fact designed to do so. You don't have a nuanced debate about anything, but plenty of talking points and rhetorical tricks - and constantly fed disdain. And often the conservative side is just more open about the latter. For one, it's the most attractive quality Trump has, he makes liberal heads explode and that's great. It's a toxic climate where the hatred for the other side, the domestic enemy of sorts, is more important than democracy. I can't point to any clear evidence that this is a result of the two-party system, it just makes sense to me that it is.

Re: the last bolded, indeed you cannot. 

Re: the first, I might be hard to convince that the "typical liberal" is a righteous condescender who laughs at uninformed bigots and calls them "racist" who need to be educated (my thing?) because--

1. In this forum, I get called "stupid" and "racist" and condescended to with quite some frequency by our friends on the right, who find my posts, and me, "silly" and "laughable." yet I don't return such invective in kind.* You've not noticed that? If you are right, why isn't the reverse true? 

2. As far as the "need to be educated"--that charge is pretty fuzzy. If someone repeats disinformation about Palestine or CRT and I dispute it with an alternative account, that's always two sides, at least, who think they have a correct account, the "education" the other side needs. Shouldn't the question always be whether one of us is actually right? I thought that was important to you too. But I am not sure I understand what you mean by the presumptuous education of others. E.g., I say that for democracy to work, citizens have to be educated FOR democracy, not just job training. That's an assumption that goes back to the 17th century. Is it condescending to say that our own democracy might work better if citizens had a better knowledge of how democracies go under at a time when our own is in danger?

3. You were accused of condescension once a few months back, weren't you? And yet I don't think you were condescending. Someone just "felt" that way because you appeared to have more knowledge on a subject. Have you never wondered how much of the rhetoric about condescending liberal elites might be manufactured? Why does Hannity have to free-associate condescension of liberal elites to virtually every subtopic on his show every night? I'm not disputing there might be 'liberals' who do it, but it's a stretch to say that behavior sets the tone for the party, as it does on the other side. Rachel Maddow doesn't tell her audience nightly that our Repub masters think they are better than us.

4. Horrors to say the conservative side is "more open" about disdain. Like that's a positive, more honest, when it is in fact the principled rejection of honesty, dialogue and compromise. They don't call Dems the party of NO.  I just cited the Gingrich memo above. That is indeed "more open" and the embrace of its consequences by Republicans should not be fogged by suggesting Democrats really do the same, just less honestly.   

What is the thing that Dems might do which would end the deadlock? You think we have it because Dems don't listen? The division would ease and finally end if they did? Until they do they are partially responsible? 

*Well, maybe there is a grey area. One person thinks my LOLs are condescending.