Anyone who still parrots the "both sides!" argument after January 6 (scratch that, after the last five years (scratch that, after Nixon and Reagan)) is so deeply and lazily uneducated that you must have intentionally tried to avoid even a single rational thought about the subject over your entire life. Please don't vote.
You want to talk to me about "nuanced" when you spout off the laziest possible take on politics, that "both sides" are just always the same? All politicians are liars, all government is bad, the world is simple, yadda yadda? That is 100% devoid of any nuance whatsoever.
The "both sides are the same" argument is disinformation just as harmful as Ivermectin curing COVID. It has never been and never will be true, in any situation, ever, and believing/spreading it is actively harmful to making the world a better place. The Confederacy and the Union were not the same. The Ottomans and Armenians were not the same in 1915. Police officers murdering black people and BLM protestors spray-painting buildings are not the same. The group that wants people to get vaccinated to stop the spread of a deadly virus is not the same as the group that intentionally coughs on people and throws temper tantrums in Walmart.
There is a group of people in America whose entire political viewpoint is centered around hurting the right people. Around making sure those people are disenfranchised, imprisoned, enslaved, and/or killed. That's the main political driver of everything they do: harm the right people. This group votes overwhelmingly (if not unanimously) conservative, and is a surprisingly large portion of the entire conservative party. This does not exist on the other side. At all. That doesn't mean everything the Democratic party does is good, or even that there is one unified set of policies in the party. But there simply is no "out group" liberals are trying to bind by law, but not protect. It does not exist. So fuck your "both sides!" argument, forever. You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading disinformation.
American politics is polarized everyone knows this. It's polarized for a reason, it's polarized on very specific mutually agreed topics - specifically tailored to divide and rule. They are not "both sides", they are the same side.
What is surprising is that people buy into this WWF scripted fight of democrats vs republicans as the good and evil fight, not realizing the whole govt is evil no matter who is in power, it's not a false equivalence of both sides.
There are only 2 sides, the people vs the govt. No matter who you gets into power you will be screwed over. Be it healthcare, education, opioid crisis..
Richest country in the world, can't afford healthcare or free quality education.
As an individual if your govt can't do these things, what is it doing? It's definitely not a problem of means, it literally has unlimited money.. it's a problem of priority.
I have verry little hope of being able to get through to you, but, my 2 cents. Politics will destroy your mind, it will make you hateful, sad and waste your time and life. Wish you well and be happy. You're in America, people are literally dying to be there, enjoy yourself and don't stress too much. Cheers!
It is a false equivalence, and you just repeating it with more words and more appeals to emotion adds absolutely nothing of substance to this discussion. Your position of radical-simplification and reduction serves just one purpose: To let you off the hook for actually doing anything about anything, because "they’re all the same.”
I’m not wasting a moment trying to convince you of anything: You cannot reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. But for the benefit of others:
When we convince ourselves everything is the same, we fall into learned helplessness. Worse, we become complicit in the oppression we performatively complain about. The standard we look past is the standard we accept. We may think we're not looking past it by criticizing both parties in a way that suggests they’re identical, but in reality we're giving them a pass because our complaints aren’t actionable, and without understanding the ways both parties actually behave in detail, we cannot develop ways to create change.
So.
Yes, Democrats and Republicans are both part of the American power structure. In many cases they’re funded by the same oligarchs to pursue the same unjust principles. Yes, Democrats create and support policies that reflect conservatism, because America is founded on conservatism, and both parties are trying to uphold their vision of conservatism. But just because they’re both parties in a country steeped of conservatism doesn’t mean they’re the same.
For example: Enforcing the collection of student loans, while bailing out bankers is conservatism. Police murdering black citizens at traffic stops with impunity, while felons are barred from voting is conservatism.
Yes, it’s critical to see what they have in common. But also yes, it’s critical to see that student loan and wall street policies are not the same as policies that encourage violent white supremacists to get themselves a badge and a gun and carry out state-sanctioned genocide.
And with that...
Good day sir/madam/whatever honorific applies to trolls.
