Stance on gun control

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

This refusal to compromise is going to doom this country. This country was built on compromise, right or wrong. In the past, I also had the sense that both parties were motivated by the best interests of the country and its people, rather than just trolling and getting invited to cable news.

I did, too, but in retrospect, that was youthful naivety on my part. Politicians are always motivated by ego and power, and I can't imagine that was different 25 years ago. It's just that our polity back then was a lot more rational, because times were different (end of the Cold War, budget surplus, pre-9/11, pre-recession, etc.), so politicians weren't incentivized to troll POTUS at the State of the Union or pander to favored groups along tribal lines in order to get attention on the news and social media. In the 1990s, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the era were fringe figures who could never get elected to Congress; now they're supported by large pluralities in their respective parties (though not majorities – yet).

One other point I will make: The Ukraine War has made it a lot more difficult for me to be as comfortable aligning myself with the right, because I find it abhorrent that so many conservatives are openly sympathetic towards Russia in the conflict.