It just saddens me the way politics has devolved so much over the years.

[LynneSin]

I remember when I first fell in love with politics some 30 years ago when Jimmy Carter ran for president. Mind you I was just a lil kid but I thought any man that grew peanuts for my favorite food (peanut butter) had to be a good person. As I got older I was living in a part of Pennsylvania that had a slew of republicans and sure we disagreed on the issues but we walked away as friends non-the-less.

There is such a vile hatred going on with politics today and it's filled with so much hatred. I just don't understand that anger and even though I see a little bit here it's just wretchedly bad with the GOP especially now that the fundamentalists and these tea party activists have taken over. Where does all this hatred come from? I mean they call themselves Christians but the Jesus I know never told us to hate - in fact he said that we should 'Love one Another'

How many gun shootings these past 30 days and it seems many of them were connected to right-wing propaganda groups and taking advantage of the lack of assault weapon bans. I thought we were evolving from the Jim Crow era but it seems we are regressing back to it.

This just makes me sad.

[ahg]

1. Blame the Limbaugh - Hannity - Beck crowd.

These right wing radio screamers just love to hate.

[Johonny]

4. How can you blame them?

They are just selling affirmation to people that want to hear that information. The question is why do these people want it?

I was thinking about the topic the other day. Why are conservatives so angry and more to the point angry over generally made up fake concerns. In a way Mitt Romney doesn't fit in with the current Republican party because he is so passionately detached. Wait until Christie speaks at the convention. He and Paul Ryan really show the general anger, meanness and hatred that is the current party. Yet they will generally be really angry about stuff like "Gay Marriage" that can't possibly matter to anyone. Why do so many people want easy safe targets for their hatred? Because blaming real problems on their real sources would invalidate their preconceived beliefs? Probably. Which of course only makes them more angry. The more right wing the country becomes, the MORE angry ring wing conservatives seem to get. Because instead of making their life better the policies in general make their life worse. Since they can't admit they made a mistake... they just find and want to hear about convenient scapegoats to blame. Rush and Hannity and Beck are just self service clowns ready to spoon feed people crap they want and need to hear or else they'd have to admit they're totally wrong about society and how it works.

[Hydra]

17. They hate progress of any kind

I bet they still hate the Civil Right movement, Sufferage for women, Child labor laws, etc.

They seem to be in love with a level of barbarism that's...obscene, for lack of a better term.

I sort of understand it, having known an old conservative relative- they want a world that's easy to understand, that they can figure out in one glance, where everyone looks, feels and acts the same, and believes the same things. Anything outside of their little box is frightening- genuine terror type frightening.

While those two worlds don't seem to have anything in common, they have one very glaring thing: Repression. They would happily beat us all into submission so they never had to deal with an original thought.

How's that one for you? We're surrounded by monsters.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. And the sad thing is that meeting their hatred with civility is futile.

Perhaps the days of civility in politics are a delusion or myth. Much like the right wing utopia of the 50's, we are pining for what was only good on the surface.

I wish things were better, but I wonder if we just are seeing clearly what has always been there.

[duhneece]

10. I see that differently.

I don't believe our civility, our treating all with respect, our expression of compassion & reason is ever futile. I'll bet you have 'planted some seeds' for people to think about...and a few WILL have their awareness raised, in time. About patience, I've always agreed with that cartoon of a vulture saying to his bud, "Patience, hell. I'm going to kill me something" but I find that patience can pay off if I keep speaking truth to power, letting folks (even the most rw) that I sure see things differently...that either opens a conversation or stops them.

[dawg]

3. It really is sad, isn't it.

You know, when you were that little girl up in PA admiring Carter, I was a stupid little boy down here in Georgia pulling for Ronald Reagan. (Please don't tombstone me, Skinner!)

My Dad voted Republican and I was dumb enough and young enough to think that the only reason people were poor was that they were lazy and not willing to work. As I grew up, I learned about real life, and I cast my first ever vote for Michael Dukakis.

I remember, as kids in high school, teasing each other about politics. My best friend (and sort of rival) at the time, was a Zeppelin-loving Democrat from PA/DE (they're the same state, right?). All my friends disagreed, but no one was hateful about it.

I don't know if it was just me growing up and switching sides, or if the people down here really have grown that much more hateful, but it really feels different now. Living in Georgia, I feel like I have to watch what I say or be prepared to defend myself physically. I haven't put an Obama sticker on my truck yet, and I hesitate because I'm afraid of having my paint keyed or my tires cut.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and when I was a kid the denomination seemed just like any of the other "mainstream" churches like the Methodists and Presbyterians. Not so, anymore.

I don't think it's just politics that has changed. I think it's society. People are mean. Not all of them, but enough to make it a harsher society.

[RKP5637]

5. You really hit the bottom line of it all IMO. "I don't think it's just politics that has

changed. I think it's society. People are mean. Not all of them, but enough to make it a harsher society."

[LynneSin]

6. Where I grew up it wasn't much different than Georgia

I was from that part of Pennsylvania. I've voted for Tom Ridge and Arlen Specter when he was a republican. And honestly Ronald Reagan looks aghastly progressive compared to the twerps coming out of the GOP today. As much as I can't stand Reagan I'd rather have him than any teabagger as president.

[Liberal Veteran]

11. We must have gone to the same church.

I grew up in Georgia and went to a Southern Baptist church regularly. It seemed like in the late 70's to early 80's the tone at church changed considerably. It went from being a kind of friendly fellowship to being a paranoid, finger-pointing, fashion show.

[jeff47]

7. Um.....no actually it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.

After all, no Representatives have shot any Senators in the Capitol building for over a century.

The Dixiecrats becoming Republicans created an anomaly in US politics, where the two parties were pretty friendly to each other.

But the Dixiecrats are now dead. And politics will revert to its normal state.

[Swede]

8. "My parents hated FDR,they were Republicans."

I was watching the PBS documentary the War. This guy was a kid then,and the young folks loved FDR.

[HopeHoops]

9. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can seriously relate to that. I was five months shy of 18 in the 80 election.

[dmosh42]

12. You make a valid point about how we changed...

I was born at the beginning of WW2, and like some of you, started as a Republican, thinking Eisenhower wasn't doing a bad job. And it turned out, I saw the best years foir this country. I think the whole country was so focused on keeping the US on the top, after the war, that if people acted stupid, nobody would pay much attention. Also, the rules were so that nobody could monopolize the media, and there was a lot of newspapers promoting different ideas. Television news was held to a standard of having to be balanced and fair, at least nothing like Fux news is at present. The people these days have no excuse to realize how screwed up we are with the hatred and complete stupidity is exhibited in our news on a daily basis. How did it happen that were at the top in most fields of technology. Health care is doing well in all those other countries that we were allies with, or even enemies. A real example of stupidity is in our southern states, where they received the most governmental assistance during the depression years, and during the war. They had the TVA, WPA, all kinds of huge military installations, etc., and now the leading elected people decry anyone getting assistance as "Socialists"! All based on ignorance and hatred. Somehow, this country needs to really wake up, and try to catch up with the 'real' world, and stop ass-kissing these billionaires in hopes that they're on your side.

[Initech]

13. I personally think social media has created a mean society.

My friends wonder why I don't use Facebook and things like that and I have perfectly good reasoning for that: people show you who they really are on these sites. You could meet someone and they'd be like the nicest person on the planet. But then go to their Facebook page and it's full of gun literature, right wing propaganda, things of that nature. People are fired and disciplined by their employers for what they post on these sites. Kids get bullied for they post on Facebook - it's not just right wing piece of shit stuff - it's definitely made us meaner as a society.

[LynneSin]

14. It's easy being mean when you don't have to look the other person in the eye

[GoCubsGo]

16. No. It was mean before social media came along.

I say that as someone who has spent nearly 25 years in the town that gave us Lee Atwater. Let's just say that Atwater was no anomaly. There are, and always have been, loads of people just like him here. The shit that gets posted on Facebook is no different than the shit they've been spewing as long as I have lived in this shithole town in an equally shitty state. And, also spewed across most of the rest of the country. What you see on Facebook is no different from what they have been whispering at their church breakfasts on Sunday mornings for the past 50 or 60 years, or what they've been spreading around in their idiotic chain e-mails for the past two decades. It was people like Atwater who made it acceptable to bring that shit "out of the closet", so to speak. Social media just facilitated it. It put what was just under the radar smack into the middle of the radar screen.

[X_Digger]

15. I wonder if it actually has devolved, or do you have a rosy outlook..

My great-grandfather was involved in politics from the late 1920's until his death in 1996.

The stories he could tell about politics in Appalachia would raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

I think the post upthread re the dixiecrats is spot on.