re: Why is the country/this board so polarized?

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Why is the country/this board so polarized?

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Rush Limbaugh showed that the politics of hatred and greed could be profitable.

Before Rush there had been a steady increase in the civil rights and economic stations of minorities... much, yes, at government expense. The trend had been affirmative action and assistance toward equality, and it had become unseemly to appear to be uncompassionate or on the wrong side of history.

Rush unleashed the pent up anger of old white folks who didn't want to be a part of that sort of help. He made money. The practice exploded. The invective had to be ratcheted up to remain competitive.

Now, right wingers comprise the majority of political talk radio listeners or political talk forum posters, clearly not that they're the majority of the general population but that they have a greater need for such dialogues.

Rightwingers don't use the media in the same way leftwingers do. For rightwingers, the news media is an extension of their own philosophies, a support group that buttresses opinions they know deep down don't withstand critical or humanitarian scrutiny. For wingnuts, the media is a church, and it's no coincidence that actual church goers are statistically more inclined to listen to political radio or TV. It's no accident that evolution deniers and science deniers and new math opponents and greed-guilty people congregate in support groups... denial is a difficult thing to maintain.

Leftwingers, on the other hand, accept news and talk for what it should be: an information source. We have less of a need for attaboys from our peers, we have more courage in our convictions.

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Leftwingers, on the other hand, accept news and talk for what it should be: an information source. We have less of a need for attaboys from our peers, we have more courage in our convictions.

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Think of politicians as lawyers (because for the most part they are). Their clients are the 1% (soaked, you-didn't-build-that), the 47% (wealth-gap deprived), and everyone in between.

Americans are divided into categories and labeled. Then they are addressed gloriously by one group of politicians, while being derisively demeaned by another. For the politicians, it's all banter. For their targets (the 1%, the 47%, and everyone in between), it's personal.

While politicians enjoy a beer together at the end of a glorious immigration debate, a rancher's South Texas family is held at gunpoint by cartel coyotes transporting underage girls to be used in ElPaso brothels. It's very personal for the rancher and those immigrants.

If a politician tells me I didn't build the business that I did in fact build, I'm going to take that personally. When he tells me "somebody else did that for me," I'm going to take that very personally.

Politicians will go at it tooth and nail, then when the debate is over they'll have a drink together. They don't take it personally. For the rest of America, it can be quite a different story.

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Pretty good stuff right here.

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They've created an industry like pornography. It is consumed for immediate gratification and always needing to push things further to continue to get more consumers because what was exciting or new before is now the same old hat. it's why you see Rush, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter continue to say more outrageous things. They have to push it to the extreme and say things that haven't been said before and do things that haven't been done before.

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I swear, the partisanship and blatant bias is simply unbecoming of you, Ralph.

The fact that you believe what you just wrote is attributable to only Republicans is not a surprise though.

Your posts are just too predictable now and they've become boring.