Posted on 01/22/2021 7:38:14 AM PST by Kaslin
"We must end this uncivil war," Joe Biden proclaimed shortly after he became the 46th president on Wednesday. Hours earlier, in his last moments as the 45th president, Donald Trump extended "best wishes" to the "new administration." Graceful words, but accompanied by sharp and, in some cases, deserved attacks. Our presidents since George Washington have come to office through an inevitably adversary process, and while they may inspire "unity" on occasion, that's more the exception than the rule.
That process has become especially adversary in times of close division, like the polarized partisan parity prevailing since the 1990s. Joe Biden is the fifth consecutive president taking office with his party holding majorities in both houses of Congress. But those majorities proved evanescent for both his two Democratic and his two Republican predecessors, and his party's current margins in the House and Senate are just as precarious as then-President George W. Bush's were 20 years ago.
This polarization is sharp because it's based not so much on economic issues, which can often be settled by splitting the difference, but on deeply held moral values by which people live or seek to live their lives. Solomonic solutions can remain unacceptable to those with strong feelings on both sides.
What we shouldn't expect, and what Biden is unlikely to deliver, are bipartisan compromises of the type that were frequent during his 36 years in the Senate but have become rarer, if not quite nonexistent, in the last dozen years.
Examples include transportation and communications deregulation during the administrations of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Social Security repair in 1983, immigration and tax packages in 1986, welfare reform in 1996 and the Medicare fix in 1997 that led to a couple of balanced federal budgets.
Most were the products of not partisan control but divided government at a time when Republicans seemed to have a lock on the presidency (for 20 of the 24 years between the 1968 and 1992 elections) and Democrats a lock on Congress, or at least the House (where they held 243 of 435 House seats between the 1958 and 1994 elections).
With little hopes of overturning the other side's lock, politicians made deals to get half a loaf and maybe a bit more. But in polarized partisan parity, in which control of the White House and of both houses of Congress has alternated, politicians have an incentive to wait till their side gets the White House and both sides of Capitol Hill.
So, Washington hasn't seen such bipartisan achievements since Bush and then-Sen. Edward Kennedy hammered out their education bill in 2001. Bush couldn't get Democrats interested in Social Security changes in 2005. Then-President Barack Obama couldn't negotiate a budget deal with then-House Speaker John Boehner in 2013. Bush and Obama failed to get immigration legislation in 2006, 2007 and 2013.
And note what happens when one party gets control and legislates. Then-President Bill Clinton tried to pass health insurance legislation in 1993 and lost his Democratic majorities in 1994. Obama did pass health insurance legislation in 2010 and lost even more House seats.
Obamacare remained unpopular while Obama was in office, but changing Obamacare became unpopular when Trump and Republicans tried to in 2017 and when Democrats won the House in 2018. The lesson I draw is that voters gripe about health insurance to pollsters and politicians, but when they see a plan that threatens their own arrangements, they prefer the status quo.
In a time of polarized partisan parity, passing major bipartisan legislation is mostly impossible, and using partisan majorities to pass longtime wish lists usually boomerangs on those in power.
Biden's inaugural address was light on legislative issues. "We face an attack on our democracy and on truth" -- justified but not unifying criticism at Trump's lengthy refusal to concede defeat and Trump supporters' assault on the electoral process two weeks ago -- "and a raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world."
But Biden's coronavirus policy looks very much like Trump's. As for "growing inequity," actually, pre-virus, incomes had been getting more equal. As for "systemic racism," we've had civil rights legislation since even before Biden was elected senator, and accusations that anything more than a handful of Americans favor the "white supremacy" he highlighted are not very unifying. Neither are his attacks on "lies" if that means attacks on free speech.
Recent polls show Trump falling and Biden's numbers not rising above partisan levels, below the honeymoon levels incoming presidents once got. His appeal for unity sounded heartfelt, but it will be of little avail if he pursues the sharp partisan agenda of which there were numerous hints in his text.
The Biden/Harris administration is filled with psychopaths who now believe that they can now destroy America without opposition. The have the intel community, the IRS and all the many federal agencies that can be used to destroy businesses and individuals.
I want unity!
That’s why I’m going along with the impeachment of a private citizen and the disenfranchisement of 75 million voters!
So sayeth the demented, obsolete fossil who stole the election and is resuming America's inevitable descent into the abyss.
I loathe all these people. Journalists. Politicians. Educators. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.
FU to the fake president Demento/vice president heels up ho
In other words: unity = kiss my feet, peasants, or else.
I like England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales,
And as I continue they’re really lookin’ swell,
So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord,
To me this blitzkreig is just like sport, anything fly,
It’s all good, let me at it, send in the Panzers,
A little bit of Poland in my life
A little bit of Denmark by my side
A little bit of Norway is all I need
A little bit of Belgium is what I see
A little bit of Netherlands in the sun
A little bit of Luxembourg all night long
A little bit of France, I’ll make it purer
A little bit of you makes me your Fuhrer
H/T Lou Bega
https://youtu.be/EK_LN3XEcnw
1984 indeed
We must have unity! So on day 1 I’m going to divide the nation over jobs and queers! See how unifying I am!?
Didn’t hear one word about ending the uncivil war out of the demented perv over the last four years when he and his party were waging it against Trump and conservatives. Now all of the sudden, we must end it even as the big tech part of the dem paryt continues to wage it. Ain’t gonna happen.
HEARTFELT?
That was the silliest word in the entire diatribe...
Barone is a jerk
I thought this weasel assumed room temperature a long time ago.
Traitors must hang. Take no prisoners.
These same a&&holes now want us to believe that the 2020 election was "pristine" and free of theft, so we should "unite" with them?
Yeah. That's NEVER gonna happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ANY day.
FUJB & his "voters"
F$$k Joe Biden and f&&k unity.
Here’s something great for unity:
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2021/01/more-confirmation-of-greatest-hoax-ever.html
The supposed pandemic has been well described as, in actuality, a “casedemic”. In other words the constant drumbeat of “case” statistics based on the inappropriate use of PCR testing was always ever designed to instill fear of death in the populace by creating a false impression of rapid and wide spread of actual disease—with the real goal of driving Trump from office. We’ve all known that for a long time, and I have to admit I’ve grown a bit weary of pointing out the hoax nature of this pandemic—preaching to the choir. It’s been a long time since the actual epidemiological profile of this disease was any mystery, but the “casedemic” hoax was perpetrated to reinforce the false narrative.
Wednesday, under cover of the military protected installation of a new DC regime, the WHO came out with new guidance for use of the PCR test—guidance that essentially completely deconstructs everything that the Global establishment has been propagating in the face of scientific knowledge. I actually did take note of this development and initially passed on it, but for those who missed it, LifeSite has an excellent account:
But note well—this was not an otherwise harmless scientific-medical hoax. It was a hoax perpetrated for political purposes at the highest levels of our scientific and political establishments and by Bill Gates and our other Globalist - Great Reset masters. As a deliberate part of that political hoax our economy and education systems were shut down. Further, effective treatment for the actual disease was knowingly withheld, allowing many otherwise unnecessary deaths—to keep the fear up.
Call it all American exceptionalism. It really was exceptional.
Clearly The Left Does Not Truly Want Unity... And Neither Do I
https://www.facebook.com/newsbusters/videos/237515727868854
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