How come the rightwing base live in a state of perpetual denial.

There is a small (or rather large depending on how you look at it) partisan group of Republicans. Your average, normal Republican will stand behind people like Bernie Sanders when spouts populist leftist rhetoric.

Democrats are the same. There is a rather small group of partisans that ruin it for all of us. *cough* Hillary Clinton *cough* Neoliberals, neoconservatives are cancerous to US politics.

If you look at the polls, Trump isn't all that popular, and neither is Congress. Bernie Sanders is actually the most popular politician.

Because politics breeds hypocrisy.

People who preach tolerance can be quite intolerant themselves.
People who preach free speech, can end up being just as bad as the feminists they oh so hate. If not worse.

Humans are full of double standards, and politics just happens to be the area which makes this the most clear.

And the root cause of all this? Tribalism. Tribalism makes us deem things ok, as long as the other tribe is affected, but as soon as it is a part of our tribe? It is full out war.

“Both R bad” my ass. Yes there’s hypocrisy in both sides but it is nowhere near equivalent. Conservatives are mathematically more hypocritical.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOxCMD-XkAAULjm?format=jpg&name=900x900

Because they have a fictitious bible stuck up their asses. Denial comes with the territory.

You really want to pit Obama's campaign promises versus his actions?

I kind of see it the other way around. The democrats still need to lie while the republicans are so despicable, they simply tell the truth about what they want to do. At the end of the day, they're both doing the same legislation.

I dont know why, but come Wednesday this board gets hostile and it just increases Wed-Saturday lol

What do you mean? this board is always 2 sides against each other.

But the way people argue gets more pointed and aggressive. Like Sunday-tuesday everyone can keep the conversation together and keep it to light flaming. But come wedmesday(especially in threads that havve been active for a few days), things just start to get volatile. A lot more insults and bashing.

Hmm, not noticed that

But maybe it's because Wednesday is hump day and come sunday everyone has gotten to the weekend have relaxed and let go of the stress during Thursday/friday and Saturday.

I think a specific conservative isn't around those days..........

Some of your points don't make sense. Supporting big government and supporting trump are entirely different things. Conservatives desire smaller govt. and privatization of certain government programs. They believe that individuals should have more control over their life choices and direction than a government. They dont want endless government payrolls and large bloated departments. As to supporting Trump, i have no idea whether he favors shrinking or enlarging the govt.

Libertarians are more for freedom of speech than conservatives. Conservatives have often pushed for certain types of censorship, so I dont know if I would say they are for freedom of speech moreso than other political groups. But freedom of speech and racist or discriminatory policies are different.

Every party jumps to the defense of their members. That is hypocritical, but that's politics. Many left leaning people are currently trying to explain away Al Franken's actions as merely harmless play or the fault of the woman. But yes, many conservatives seem to give that Moore fellow a pass and that is disgusting.

As for wanting respect, who doesn't? Most groups tend to put their interests ahead of others' interests. Sad, but that's the truth.

I think you are looking at things with a very narrow focus.

I'm not responding to you specifically, just this sort of reply that's been the default one from the conservatives in here, from what I can tell. You can go ahead and color me unimpressed, you're basically all just going "b-b-b-b-b-but...they do it too!!!" You're not even really giving examples of liberals doing it as well, you seem to all be just assuming some parity between the two parties as a rationalization for your pre-held beliefs rather than either actually establishing parity or coming to terms with the idea that there isn't parity. It seems to me like Merc made a well-substantiated argument with concrete examples, and I have yet to see anyone on the other side actually try to counter the conservative examples or provide liberal examples.

Further, just because the left may do the same thing from time to time doesn't mean it's the same thing as what the right does. Like Merc said, it's like on every single issue they're on one side, until they're not. Not only does this give liberals a deep sense of unfairness in politics, it makes it harder to get things done. Democrats go into a lot of these negotiations with the expectation that if they integrate Republican ideas or show a willingness to drop their own ideas if it gets us towards a compromise then they'll be more likely to be able to pass legislation. We have seen that expectation slowly killed over the past few decades. Not only did Democrats pre-emptively drop single payer and the public option from the healthcare debate, they based their entire framework on a Republican proposal. You see KOD complaining about Hillary (presumptively) in part because of her role in the anti-crime law of the 90's. Part of why that law has such a bad reputation is because most of the conservative ideas made it in no problem (tough on crime measures like mandatory minimums), while many of the liberal ideas were relentlessly attacked in the following decades (night basketball programs were one talking point used to take down Democrats in the next election). So you have this bizarre dynamic where Democrats are taking heavy political flak for compromising with Republicans and Republicans have outright pledged to not negotiate with a sitting Democratic president in order to harm him politically, and you're telling me that's parity? I'm sorry, I don't see it.

And I get that not all Republicans think the same about all the issues. You don't all wake up in the morning pondering the intricacies of tax code or the philosophical arguments underpinning separation of church and state. What I don't get, though, is why, if all these Republican politicians differ so wildly from their electorate in subtle but significant ways, do they keep getting elected? If Republicans live in a district where their representative continuously goes against their stance on, say, medicare, then why don't they run a different candidate? Why don't they organize and try to mount a challenge to said politician? If most Republicans actually want Democrats and Republicans to work together, then why is Mitch McConnell one of the most powerful Republicans how many years after he blatantly slapped away the notion of bipartisanship? At some point Republican voters have to actually stand up and make an effort to defend the positions they say they support, or they have to admit that they don't really care about those positions.

@theone86: Nice try, and great post. Unfortunately it is being wasted arguing with brick walls.

A well substantiated argument isn't laden with hyperbolic declaratives, nor do I find examples like "blind support" of President Trump from the right base concrete; it's conjecture. Sure, we can pander to polls but they merely show consistent data of approval of any President. You will see similar numbers with Democratic approval with Obama, and you will see similar numbers with Bush and Republicans. If you're wondering why someone didn't take the time to dissect the hyperbole, I would reckon it's probably because no one found it worth the time nor the effort.

Fact of the matter is he gave examples and none of you have done anything to either counter those examples or give your own examples of Democrats doing it. You just keep saying "they do it, too," without actually proving that they do it too.

So it's conjecture that Republicans have hammered home family values for decades, but are now defending president pussygrabber? It's conjecture that his base has been screaming "drain the swamp," but are defending him appointing family friends and industry insiders to key positions? Not only is this well-established, there are articles upon articles of journalists going out, interviewing Trump supporters, and questioning them about these cognitive biases. You know what the big takeaway from all of these articles is? Republican voters don't care. They're not principled. As long as candidates pander to their worldview with "values" rhetoric, they look the other way on just about everything those candidates do. Like I said, that makes it pretty difficult to have a functional government.

And both President Obama's and Bush's approval ratings dropped among their bases during their presidencies. You know what caused Bush's to drop specifically? His support of immigration reform. Besides, it's a false equivalence. Neither Bush or Obama did anything that so blatantly violated their party's stated values as Trump has.

The problem here is that you reckon. It doesn't matter what you reckon, it matters what is. I don't think you want to know what is, I think you'd rather just sit and reckon because it's more comfortable.

Another example:

The right toutes states rights, but so many red states are full of a pro marijuana legalization majority; but the right wing political figures will never entertain legalization.

All this racism and hypocrisy talk, and nobodys talking about the DNC’s taco bowl vote?

I’m disappointed.

Its pretty easy to show democrats do the same thing, just name a topic. Marijuana? Prison population? Education? Health care? Banks and Wall Street? They are no different from republicans, in fact as i said before, at least the republicans are honest about what scumbags they are on these issues, the democrats will still lie to you. They will still preach what they wont practice.

You have to give him the examples. You're not.

There's that hot sauce thing Hillary did. Pretty racist.

Im pretty sure i have in this thread and in any other thread where people deny how corrupted the democrats are. Even in the quote you responded to i highlighted issues they preach "fixing", yet do nothing.

Marijuana, the vast majority of democrats do not support legalization or even decriminalization. Why not? They're paid by private prison owners. Don't take my word for it, look at their voting records.

Education. The vast majority claim we need to fix our public education system, yet they continue to vote for the most corrupted and broken education system available, charter schools.

Banks and wall street. As despicable as Warren is, she's really the only one who has even spoke out against what the banks did and continue to do and she has next to zero support with democrats.

Military. The last democratic president ran on cutting military funding and decreasing the number of military strikes. He also took us from bombing 2 countries, to 7. He also didnt do a single goddamn thing that got him elected.

Oil, how many democrats spoke out about what was going on in standing rock? how many approved oil companies using on the clock police as private military? None?

Which president is responsible for deporting more people than any other? Hint, his name starts with an "O" and ends with "ama". Trump is catching all this shit for deporting people, as he should, but he's basically just continued what Obama put in place and during that time he won the fucking noble peace prize and not a goddamn peep from democrats (supporters or establishment) on how disgusting this was.

So where do you want to go with this? Do i need to go to the classics of Clinton expanding the war on drugs and private prison system? Removing the GS? Backstabbing the middle class with NAFTA? We have 30 years of the democrats acting as badly, if not worse (given the republicans are honest about what pieces of shit they are, democrats still lie), so where do you want to go with this? You're in this perpetual denial that the democrats did not play a key role in our society turning out the way it did when an ounce of honesty from you would force you to be aware of their role.

He's trolling you man.

You whine in one thread when you're called a troll.......even though you have admitted as such....and then turn around and call others a troll. If you can flag those that call you a troll........then you need flagged as well. Hypocrite. Whiny hypocrite.

It's comfortable. You have to keep in mind that these people A.) don't want anything to change, and B.) if they do want change, it is regressive.

Progress is inherently open-minded, to go forward in life and as a society would require a huge change in their lives and they are against that. As a result, they abandon reasonable thought processes, logic, emotionless decision making; and instead embrace anger, fear, paranoia, and, of course, denial.

Show me where I say I am a troll.

Let’s add the defense of Roy Moore to this

Can we get a sticky of this thread, or we just post a list of all the lies and false beliefs people on the right believe.