How did politics come to be so nasty?

September 17, 2021

How did politics come to be so nasty?

Breaking: When people are forced into a corner, they lash out.

Woman: "I want the government to spend 6.8 trillion dollars a year! You just want people to die!" Man: "I want the government to spend 6.3 trillion dollars a year! You just want to spend us into bankruptcy!" // photo by Kiera Burton

Someone I know once gazed into the distance in between his regularly scheduled Trump-bashing and wondered, "How did politics get so nasty?"

I let the question go, thinking some self-reflection would eventually hit him in the face, given the obviousness of the answer.

The introspection never arrived.

He once tried to claim that he's a moderate, which I laughed at. I've never heard him offer up anything good about Trump and I've never heard him say anything bad about Obama. He'll stomp and shout about what Trump is doing to journalists but he somehow never heard that Obama has prosecuted more journalists' sources and whistleblowers under the espionage act than twice of all previous presidents combined, denied a record number of FOIA requests, and issued mass secretive subpoenas against journalists. He thinks Fox News is complete tabloid junk and thinks MSNBC is complete gospel. Sadly, in this hyperpartisan political sphere, this is not unique.

Even in the same circle of people, a die-hard Trump supporter has never had anything positive to say about Obama, though he has once volunteered criticism of Trump's tariff policy, which surprised me. He will praise the George W Bush wars in the Middle East but has never uttered a peep about Obama's wars. He will denounce Rachel Maddow all day long but will worship at the feet of Mark Levin.

And here I am, the libertarian, stuck in the middle of the two warring factions with a surround sound of angry voices. Democrats are stupid from the right channel and Republicans are evil from the left channel. They both talk politics with me, but they can't talk to each other. The left channel thinks the right channel is a racist, the right channel thinks the left channel is a naïve moron. The left channel never has any idea of any argument other than his own tribe's and the right channel keeps seeing things that aren't really there. I will hear out of my left ear that it's hot out and that anyone who thinks climate change isn't real is a moron. Six months later, there is a cold spell and I hear out of my right ear that it's cold and that anyone who thinks that climate change is real is a moron. I'm left alone, wondering, does anyone understand the difference between climate and weather?

Just the other day, Joe Biden made a speech and in it, in response to a question about vaccine mandates, essentially claimed Republicans don't care about the lives of children. Won't they think of the children?? Which, of course, has nothing to do with the arguments against vaccine mandates. Literally seconds later, he laments the state of politics, saying "I — one of the lessons I hope our students can unlearn is that politics doesn’t have to be this way. Politics doesn’t have to be this way. They’re growing up in an environment where they see it’s like a — like a war, like a bitter feud. If the — if a Democrat says “right,” everybody says “left.” If a Democrat says “left,” they say “right.”"

Okay, I know Biden can't remember which shoe he put on that morning and what family he murdered with a drone strike directive the day before, but come on! One comment was strawmanning how evil Republicans are with no respect to data whatsoever and the very next thought is to pout about how nasty politics has gotten? At least throw in one of your crazy incoherent hairy legs stories or classic push-up challenges in between your thoughts to make it at least seem like you have a memory longer than a Democrat's list of programs to cut.