Why are liberals and conservatives so hostile towards each other?
I have sometimes heard that in a democratic society the liberals are the engine and the conservative are the brakes, and the vehicle needs both if it is to function properly. In my youth, the country functioned reasonably well because liberals and conservatives agreed upon some basic principles.Dwight D. Eisenhower, no one’s idea of a liberal, was certainly ok with the concept of Social Security. He said “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”Today’s so-called conservatives are not merely the brakes, they want to put the vehicle into reverse! They would have us abolish Social Security, the ACA (which barely passes for a health care system), food stamps, meals on wheels, family planning, Medicare, Medicaid and anything else that uses tax money to help the needy. Their number may have been negligible in Eisenhower’s era, but now these deluded souls appear to make up some 40% of the population, many of whom are actually beneficiaries of these social programs!The Republican party has gone off the deep end and has lost touch with reality. They are no longer the other side of the coin. This is not your father’s Republican party.
Would Bernie Sanders have defeated Donald Trump? Would Bernie have been a more or less formidable candidate than Hillary?
No, he couldn’t have.Why?He didn’t have the minority votes - African Americans and Latinos simply had little reason to vote for Sanders. For some reason Sander supporters seem to be unable to grasp that very obvious fact and they assume that their support for Sanders translated to other members of the Democratic party. It didn’t.He didn’t have the female vote - Hillary Clinton had the Democratic female vote (except, of course, the “millennials”) and Sanders did not. A first female President was a powerful lure that an elderly White male was not.He didn’t have the support of the party leadership - Again, Sanders supporters keep “forgetting” that he never raised money for the party, he never stumped for other Democrats and he was a DINO (Democrat In Name Only). The leadership of the party had no reason to believe that he would have won and they would have withheld their support.Sander’s social views didn’t align with those of the voters who gave the slight edge to Trump that allowed him to win - As the past week has demonstrated, most Trump supporters simply did not (and DO NOT) care about the racists, misogynists anti-Semites and White nationalists with whom he has surrounded himself. Apparently his views mirror their own and Sander’s social views did not.Sanders is Jewish - Sectarian bigotry is still a major issue in the United States as Trump’s appeals to anti-Muslim elements makes very clear, If someone who has made extremist and prejudiced statements about Muslims could get elected, then there’s no way that a Jew (observant or not) could have been elected during this cycle.Sanders didn’t win the primaries that he needed to and he thus didn’t even get the chance to be nominated. Even if he had won the nomination, he would have failed to garner the necessary votes or support to have won the general election.