Will Americans Work Together Again?

a) The Republicans win the White House in 2016 and hold it for eight years.

b) As a consequence of "a", the Supreme Court gets a huge influx of right-wing justices.

They have to take the Senate as well, which both the D and the R tribe elites say will not happen if either Trump or Cruz is leading the ticket. And only 8 years of R rule in Washington is going to end this war? Call me sceptical.

One side will have to collect so much power that the other side is rendered inconsequential. This has happened in both California and South Carolina and in both cases government has started to work again.

How long do you figure that takes?

Note the ages of the following left-wing justices:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 82
Stephen Breyer: 77
Anthony Kennedy: 79

Come election day they'll all be a year older.

After eight years of Republican appointees we'll all be referring to Justice Scalia as "one of the old moderates".

No.

It never gets solved, the tribe we are with is now always going to be more important than being an American, and we are going to keep hating each other and talking past each other and disrespecting each other....forget the rainbow, we cant even be the salad bowl????

Is this what you are saying to me?

pretty much, yeah. Unless the internet goes away... The information age has brought this upon us. Used to be politics was local. Now it is universal.

The inability to empathize or care about people who dont agree with us has the same stench as needing to teach 20 year olds how to talk politely on the phone or needing to teach them how to greet people (as I had to do often in the restaurant), I so often see people today not being able to do at the age of 20 what almost everybody in my day could do by age 9. There is a vast atrophy of basic life skills that I find to be alarming. Following directions is another one.... I had more than a couple of college grads or culinary school grads who could not on a consistent basis listen to a short set of easy instructions, and then follow them without direct supervision/handholding. I was not paying much attention to adults when I was a kid, but I have this sense that the drop off I see of possession of life skills in 20 year olds applies through out the different ages when compared to our elders. This is not a new idea for me, I often say " we used to be better", but the degree to which we seem to be inferior replicas of our elders is alarming me these days. I usually get told I am wrong, but I have got a sick feeling that I am right.

There is never too much information as long as it is accurate. Which seems to be the real problem. Too much twisting of facts to fit opinion.

This is one thing I have against the use of Google, especially, when it comes to issues of Basic Research. The info is rated based on number of "clicks" the topic/reference is viewed, and not on the quality of the reported research.

Google is not "peer reviewed, as is a manuscript submitted to a Scientific research Journal. The google citation posts are rated based on popularity, and not on real value.

This is similar to the use of the up/down buttons on A2K. The ups vs the downs reflect POPULARITY and not merit of the post.

I neither use or pay any attention to the up and down buttons.

Some states (states in the nationalistic sense) have come to be ruled by supermajorities, but it does not necessarily mean that everything goes along tickity-boo thereafter. When the mob forced the royal family to return to Paris late in 1789, the National Assembly took up quarters in the Salle du Manège at the Tuileries palace where the royal family had been lodged. (The name National Assembly was technically no longer used, but that is historical detail which is not relevant.) The Salle du Manège was the former riding school, a hippodrome, or indoor horse arena. The President's table was located on the floor, and from his position, the constitutional monarchists were on his right, and the anti-monarchical republicans, often called the Girondins were on his left--and hence right and left as political labels.

But the President, and the constitutional monarchists and the repbulicans were all ignoring the unrecognized supermajority in the cheap seats, the "bleachers" if you will, who sat above and behind the other two groups. They were known as "The Mountain," and were far more radical than the republicans. In September, 1792, the Montagnards ran riot in the streets of Paris, and were called the Septembriseurs, combining the word September and briser, to break or shatter. They looted the townhouses of aristocrats, and slaughtered many of them in the streets. Some of their acts were brutal murders of incredible horror--the Princesse de Lamballe was dragged into the street, gang-raped and had her genitals cut out, then was left to die in the street.

The leaders of the Mountain--Robespierre, Danton and Marat principally--knew they were riding the whirlwind, and early in 1793, they brought down the Girondins, who had gone from being the radicals to being seen as the conservatives. They then formed the Committee for Public Safety, which Robespierre came to dominate. This lead to two terrible consequences. One, of course, was obvious, the Terror, with thousands executed. The other was the levée en masse, or conscription. It had existed before Robespierre, in fact for centuries, but he announced a new levée in August, 1793, and although it was unpopular, it brought in so many troops that the rest of Europe was shocked and dismayed. This was the origin of the massive armies that Napoleon would later exploit. That combined with the brilliant military reforms instituted before the revolution resulted in French military dominance for more than 20 years. In fact, even after the fall of Napoleon, the French were the dominant military force in Europe until the German invasion of 1870. That's unintended consequences with a vengeance.

The supermajority can create turmoil in less bloody and militant circumstances, too. The Federalist Party collapsed in the years after the War of 1812, and that left the Democratic Republicans as the only real political party left in the country. James Monroe strove to eliminate political parties altogether, but it was a failure, and neither Monroe, nor apparently, anyone else, could see the cracks in the edifice. The Republicans were increasingly alienated from the country. As the party of Jefferson, it was seen as the party of slavery by many disaffected northerners who were made politically homeless by the collapse of the Federalists. Among people on the growing frontier, the Republicans in Washington were seen as an elite in Washington, out of touch with the realities of their everyday lives. Monroe's era was called the "era of good feelings" by a Boston newspaper editor in 1817, but that was a sham. Increasingly, Americans saw government as the province of aristocrats and political manipulators.

In 1824, the Democratic Republicans fielded all of the candidates. Monroe had stepped aside, declining to run again, a tradition but not a requirement of the constitution. Andrew Jackson took the most popular votes, and 99 electoral votes. But 131 electoral votes were needed, so a contingent election was held in the House of Representatives, and Henry Clay used his influence as Speaker of the House to assure that John Quincy Adams was elected. Adams then appointed Clay Secretary of State. The office of Secretary of State was seen as the stepping stone to the presidency, as James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams had all held the office before being elected President.

Jackson was infuriated, as were many of the voters who had expected him to win the office. But Jackson didn't just get mad, he got busy. Using the same "from the ground up" method by which he had organized his political supporters in Tennessee, Jackson created a new political party, the Democratic Party. (The Democrats like to claim that they are the party of Jefferson, but that's hogwash.) In the 1828 election, Jackson, running as the Democratic Candidate, took 56%^of the vote, but he absolutely buried Adams in the Electoral College, 178 to 83. Adams ran as a "National Republican," a party which declined and died within the short period of Jackson's two administrations. The fragments of that party, with old line Federalists, "Anti-Masons" and some disaffected Democrats formed the Whig Party after Henry Clay was trounced by Jackson in the 1832 election.

The Democratic Republican supermajority did not lead to bloodshed in the streets, or to foreign wars as The Mountain had done in France. It lead to a new populist political party organized from the ground up, and a new political party organized from unrepresented splinter groups. The next grassroots movement in American party politics to succeed resulted int he election of Lincoln in 1860--the Republicans.

Supermajorities usually don't last (note that i said usually). It seems no one stays happy for long in such systems, because someone is always left out. The Democrats and Republicans have done an impressive job of excluding other political movements since the American civil war. A cynic might say that the so-called "Great Two Party System" is the current supermajority.

Not for something like 8 to 12 years if than.

I see the justice of your remark as regards an obstructionist House and Senate. However, the two parties continue to exclude all other political movements.

Your right about the need of a third party. conservative, moderate and liberal. The only problem is finding another liberal. As far as I know I am the only one who lives in my town.