Washington Gridlock

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

Crooks and Liars: Opinion: Heather Digby: Sunday’s Theme of The Week: Both Sides!

You want to know why a lot of Americans and if I had to guess hate politics and politicians and why our voter turnout is so low at least compared with the rest of the developed world, it is because yes both sides and I’m a Democrat, but both sides spend so much time and what I percentage of that I don’t know, no one does, but they spend so much time blaming the other side and raising money to defeat the other side. And very little time perhaps especially with a divided Congress and divided government, which I believe won’t change much after tomorrow, governing and presenting a positive message for the country.

That is what you saw if you bothered to watch the Sunday morning news programs yesterday. Commentators representing how the country feels about American politicians and politics. Which changes nothing because the partisans on both sides who have enough power to at least keep gridlock going will take that as “look the mainstream media blaming both sides equally again. Just means we need to hit the other side harder so we don’t look as bad”. The whole negative argument of “you may hate us, but you’ll hate the other side more if they come to power”.

Look I’m both a Liberal and a Democrat and proud of both labels. I’m not saying either side is equally at fault otherwise I wouldn’t be a Democrat and probably a Liberal Independent instead. Just saying that neither side is innocent here and that both party’s negatives are so high right now, that they feel they can’t win on just being positive or being very positive, that they have to make the other side look worst. So they don’t lose more political power especially coming after a big loss.
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