My observation is that “both sides” (EDIT: of the electorate) are locked in this dynamic. In the ideal world people are able to evaluate specific ideas, but instead people judge ideas based on who it comes from.
id love to know some of the good ideas from republicans, because for the past like 50 years or so, nearly every one has been a disaster or discriminatory
Here's where I think the bulk of the US population is:
- They're in favor of giving asylum to those who really deserve it (yeah, I'm sweeping a huge amount under the rug of the word "deserve"), but they're not in favor of "open borders" or large numbers of people coming here not through the legal process.
- They're in favor of equal opportunity and helping those who are downtrodden, but not in favor of "white guilt" or hiring/admission quotas.
- They're in favor of giving someone a break, but not in favor of giving criminals an infinite number of breaks (whether violent criminals or just shoplifters).
When the Democrats won in 2020, they took that victory as an endorsement of everything they believed in. It wasn't. It was a declaration that we didn't believe in where Trump wanted to take us.
When the Republicans won in 2024, they took it as an endorsement of everything Trump stood for, and everything he will decide to stand for in the future. It wasn't. It was a vote against the Democrats implementing everything they wanted to over the last four years.
In fact, it's not just the Republicans who make that mistake. I keep reading "you voted for this". Well, not exactly - there are a bunch of people who voted against open borders, but did not vote for militarized thugs grabbing people off the street based on skin color. (Yes, I know, their vote enabled that. My point is that their intent was not that at all, but only to vote against an open border.)
The bulk of the population doesn't want the Democratic platform or the Republican platform. They want some kind of sanity, avoiding the extremes of both sides.
(You say that the Republicans only have extremes? Not so. They also have "stop doing what the Democrats are doing". In some cases, that's not a bad idea.)
There is not a single national-level Democratic politician who advocates for open borders. If there is, please tell us who.
The feeling of an open border is due to a confluence of our asylum laws, the Constitution, and a surge in relative desirability of the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The President cannot directly change any of these factors.
The reason it feels like some of that has changed is because we have a President who is flouting our asylum laws [1] and the Constitution [2], having the net effect of making our country less relatively desirable [3]
Your observation is yours, but it isn't mine and many others.
I grew up in a Dem household but I don't vote dem because my parents did or because I'm a party member (I'm not), it's because the lesser of the two evils is almost always the blue side.
And this was before the GOP literally became a cult. Now it's not even a choice.
I concur that ultimately you have to decide which party to vote for (and I happen to vote similarly to you).
What I am asserting is that it would be better if we were able to judge ideas based on the merit of the idea rather than who it comes from. That is, in my experience, not happening and the electorate for both dem and rep are guilty of this behavior.
I absolutely agree with that. But as a vote for a candidate due to an agreeable policy position is also a vote that's likely to vote as a block for everything else, it's not entirely invalid to vote that way (historically).
But as today's GOP is the Party of Trump™, and they now vote in lockstep, it's a simple "nopes".
I abhor partisan politics -- Washington warned us against them at the beginning and he was right.
The false equivalence you reference, and that I agree exists, is about the politicians actions.
But I’m talking about the electorate who, in both cases, largely do not seem to evaluate the strength of ideas or policies, but, in many examples I can cite, judge ideas based on who it comes from.