Posted on 05/21/2023 9:02:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Bush and Obama from 2006-2011, appeared on “Face the Nation” Sunday and told moderator Margaret Brennan that he thinks the biggest threat to the nation isn’t white supremacy, it’s not China or Russia or climate change—it’s the political polarization of our country. It’s not the first time we’ve been so divided, he says, but there’s something new about our latest rifts :
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you think the biggest threat to United States is right now?
FORMER SEC. GATES: I think it is the polarization in the country. And, you know, we’ve always had polarization in America.
The, if you go back to the Jefferson, Adams presidential race in 1800, the things that were said in that election would fit right into a current political environment. But what’s been different, more recently, is not just a measure of paralysis, as indicated by the debt ceiling, but a level of meanness and a lack of civility among our politicians, or the sense that somebody who disagrees with you is not just somebody you disagree with, but is an enemy, is a bad person.
This lack of civility is, I think, something new and really is pretty pervasive in the Congress. And it sets a pretty bad example for the rest of the country.
Watch:
"Polarization in the country," is the biggest threat to the U.S. right now, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells @margbrennan. Gates points to "a measure of paralysis, as indicated by the debt ceiling" and "a level of meanness" and "lack of civility" among politicians. pic.twitter.com/l2tyV69aSB
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 21, 2023
Gates is also concerned about the current stalled debt negotiations between President Joe Biden and House Republicans, and how the drama lowers our status on the world stage:
I think it’s a real problem. It feeds the narrative from China in particular, that our system doesn’t work, that it’s broken, it’s paralyzed, it can’t get things done, that their model is more stable, and actually more effective than ours. So sort of having these episodes of great crisis, and then some solution at the last second, really feeds the notion that the U.S. political system isn’t working at all.
He thinks things haven’t gotten so polarized that the very system isn’t working as intended:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think it [the political system] is working?
FORMER SEC. GATES: Not very well. You know, I mean, the truth is, in the last year or so some fairly, fairly major legislation got past some of it with bipartisan support. And so, there is the possibility of some things being done. But on something like the debt ceiling, and so on, the inability to get some of these big things done, I think is a real problem.
Brennan asked how he would change things. Gates argued that we need to focus on doing what’s right for America, not just attacking our political enemies:
Well, I think it starts with leaders, and you don’t have to demonize people to disagree with them. You can say, you know, my opponent has a different point of view. I totally disagree. I think that that would be a terrible mistake, but I also believe that he or she also is trying to do what he thinks, he or she thinks what is best for America.
It’s pretty simple actually. It’s just treating each other with more civility and the reality that as Americans, we’re all in this together. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re from a red state or a blue state.
Whatever happens to the country happens to everybody.
Gates had plenty more to say regarding China, Donald Trump, our military, and more—you can read the full transcript here—but his commentary on our divided nation sticks out. He’s 100 percent right that it’s a major problem that effectively kneecaps any attempts at bipartisanship.
I don’t think there’s an easy fix, and even though this is partisan to say, I can’t help but point out then when one party attacks the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, launches baseless investigations and impeachment efforts against a sitting president, and promotes a two-tiered justice system, it’s very hard to find common ground.
We all better hope these debt ceiling negotiations are successful because if they fail things will only get more bitter between the two sides, and the American people—as well as the world—will pay the price.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates Reveals the Biggest Threat to the USA, and It’s Not China
_____________________________________
Of course not. It’s White Supremacists. You know - the average white person in the USA.
“Civility” - politician speak for the Democrats getting their way, with a bone or two given to cooperative, i.e., RINO, Republicans.
Tomorrow it will be Global Warming.
The leftists are bugs, Robert. All that smart talk about live and let live. There ain’t no live and let live with bugs.
The biggest threat to America is anti-white racism.
Most of our self-destructive policies (in immigration, education, employment law, criminal justice, etc.) is justified by anti-white racism.
Pro means first. This idea of mutual culpability while we play catcher as they criminalize half the nation is insanity.
I thought it already was.
It is China who stole 4 million American manufacturing jobs.
White supremacists is a mirage. White Americans are not at the top of heap in terms of education, earnings or crime rates.
And so Mr. Gates - did the likes of Obama, Clinton, Comey, Brennan have any part in this?
Bob Gates snaps out of his dramamine induced haze long enough to notice Dark Brandon
Hey Bob - member that time our side put 1000 ANTIFA insurrectionists in the slammer for years?
Yeah. Me neither, putz.
Zackly.
Democrats.
The ability to spend other people’s money, without accountability. The power to tax without limit has always been a weapon of the dictators, throughout the history of the world over all time.
China didn’t “steal” those jobs. The 80s macho culture of offshoring, outsourcing, corporate downsizing and asset stripping is what exported that labor.
Thatcher copied the USA when smashing the National Union of Mineworkers, and as an indirect result of her government winning that fight, we’ve lost the industry completely, hundreds of mining towns and communities were smashed up... And, we simply offshored most of the jobs in our fossil fuels industry to Russia, and steel jobs to India and China.
There was even an argument at the time that not only was this a positive shift to cheaper and more reliable sources, the more we offshored jobs to India, China and Russia the faster they’d develop.
Also, the carpet baggers got very rich.
My dad worked for a commercial firm that got the Wall Street / Office Space carpet bagger treatment. 80% of UK jobs were transferred to another country, and a lucky 5% had their redundancy delayed while they had a six month extension, fully expensed, to travel with the machinery to foreign lands to install the kit and train their replacements.
Solution...
Begin a massive transfer of political rights back to the individual states.
Don't like the politics in your current state? Move to a new state!
They 1000% stole the jobs.
They were sending finished product here cheaper than US manufacturers could buy raw materials-
which excludes the labor.
the lack of labor and pollution laws=stealing.
If you tell us how to out compete?
Romney was a king of outsourcing-I hate him already-the other choice is distribute for china instead of making it or close the doors.
The reality is one would have to be on LSD to start a labor intensive business in modern America. The all in tax and regulatory burden is insane before one actually has to deal with modern Americans.
Likewise the brash 80’s-aka the beginning of the computer chip prolierating globally improving the lives of every man, woman and child on earth is the result. Dino tech was starving for capital. VC went 2-3%/mo to 1%.mo. The next thing we know the computer chip was ubiquitous. Deregulation=we finally got cell phones as evidence exists Ma Bell inhibited us fr getting them sooner to protect the monopoly.
The definition of “dog whistle”: A coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people, but not by others.
When Gates tells about the stalled budget talks in the House with these words, “It feeds the narrative from China in particular, our system doesn’t work, that it’s broken, it’s paralyzed, it can’t get things done.” It blames the GOP as it always does. Gate’s dog whistle is saying that the GOP is causing a national security issue. All the Dems have to do is dig in and stop the GOP and that’s all they have to do—blame the GOP as a security risk. For them, there is no negotiation, no argument on the merits of a policy and sucess is causing the GOP to eat the failure that the Dems created.
The debt is the biggest threat to America and the globe
and on top of it-
the overcapacity in Asia fr the ‘87 crash which the Nikkei just recovered from recently-
saw product still being dumped here at a loss 20yrs later.
There was no competing besides labor/pollution-
ofc they ramped up state of the art manufacturing to meet our rapidly growing demand-we’re competing against the best machines. Which when things go south just keep pumping out product which is eventually dumped here at a loss.
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