"Who could re-unite America?" Topic

I didn't say I wanted one of those, Gwydion: I said that was what we were going to get, eventually. And we've been accepting democracy. Have you taken a look at our Presidential candidates lately? (And by "lately" I mean the entire lifetimes of our younger voters.)

Without going further into politics than I feel appropriate on TMP, I think you're looking at a ruling elite past its best by date, which is always a mess for us. (Think the elections of Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and FDR, which would be the three previous turnovers.) And, as was said above--"different dreams:" we're deeply and perhaps about evenly divided on what the happy ending looks like. I understand there's a Navy saying that "for a captain with no destination, no wind is favorable."

Get 70% of the country to share a vision of the future, and the problem solves itself--at least until it turns out the specified policies won't produce that future, or that the future has its own problems.

But good luck finding here or in our history the public figure who can create a vision of the future 70% of modern Americans can get behind.

We have never dealt with such powerful media forces in the past. Newspapers did have influence on both sides in the ACW. The yellow journalism of Pulitzer and Hearst played a major role in starting the Spanish-American War.

Today we have yellow journalism on steroids, instantly available to all via technology. While traditional historic measurements, like the stock market, unemployment, and poverty, have all shown great positive change, the current elected President is swamped by a barrage of negativity from certain media, even though a number of his policies are popular. Perhaps its true that none of our historic leaders could survive this kind of environment.

The role of the pandemic is important, I think. What happened during the influenza epidemic in 1918-19? Did we pull together or attack each other and the government? I do not really know.

There was not as much unity in the North during the ACW as we might think. The rise of the Copperheads, draft riots in NYC, McClellan and the Democrats campaigning on war-weariness. The print media played a role on both sides.

But we got past these things somehow. I agree that we have not had a great run of exceptional presidents – but I think that goes for much more of our history that the recent past.

Robert, I agree that there are generational changes in national leadership when things get rocky, and this is one of those times.

It's not a who but a what. A war with China, maybe, once we've rooted out all of their sympathizers.

Lol an attempt at a red scare, now I've seen it all.

Well, we got pretty far with this, but it looks like that's it. Thanks everyone!

LOL the election of JFK was day one of the culture war. It's amazing how quickly things are forgotten and then when such nuggets are recovered, folks scream that people are "reinventing" history.

Robert Piepenbrick: Stated: Get 70% of the country to share a vision of the future, and the problem solves itself--at least until it turns out the specified policies won't produce that future, or that the future has its own problems." I think more than 70% of America shares very close visions of the future. Unfortunately, that majority is 'screamed down' by fringe elements' on BOTH the left and the right.
We have leaders. The two party system and the "blessings of modern media" is creating perceptions that you can only vote for one of two bad candidates. Gary Johnson was an effective Governor, had a history of successfully working across the aisle and the media intentionally smeared him to make him look the fool. While both the major party nominees had issues. The media went out of it's way to ensure that most Americans never heard Gary Johnson's name in relation to the 2016 election.

George III without a doubt.

A definition of insanity is "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

With the two party system the one in power robs the bank and the other party drives the get away car. Depending on the election outcome they'll simply switch places. The party in power will always make the most mistakes and be most corrupt hence the reason to throw them out.

We elect one party and then get disappointed and 2-8 years later we elect the other party, etc even though the players (Congress) are about 90% the same each election.

The US is $30 USD trillion in debt with trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future. What have they achieved with the deficit spending other than lining their pockets and their cronies and special interest groups.

China and may other countries have better representation in the hall of Congress than you or I could ever dream of.

Greed (being promised that your guy will take money from someone else and give it to you or just print more "free" money), lobbyists, foreign interests, etc. corrupts the system. I think the bottom line is the voters do not hold the politicians accountable so why shouldn't they continue to enrich themselves?

They want us to depend on them so they can control us and the "useful idiots" voting for them, over 50% of the population, are enablers.

The sad part is that if one party wants to implement a good idea the other party will attempt to block it because they are not interested in helping the people unless THEY get credit for it. The only thing both parties readily agree on is raising the debt limit.

The last time I checked 7 of the 10 richest counties in the US were in the DC area. What's their industry – money and special interests.

In Las Vegas the mob skimmed off the top of the casinos income. In DC the politicians print the $$ and then them, special interest groups and crony capitalists skim off the top before it ever gets spent.

The thing that should be uniting the people is the rule of law and the Constitution and not identity politics. Unfortunately people are too partisan, hateful, greedy and ignorant of how the country should be run they are easily manipulated. Anyone running for office will be attacked like never before and millions of dollars will be spent to ruin them and their family. That means our choices will continue to be narcissistic, power hungry, corrupt megalomaniacs who have no respect for the little people and will read anything a teleprompter puts in front of them.

The country is trading their freedoms for "free stuff".

The country was founded to keep these people and the Federal Government from running our lives and subjecting us to tyranny. Unfortunately, there are too many "useful idiots" out there that want the country turned into a banana republic democracy where the minority have no rights, the states have no rights because they intend to be the majority that enslaves the minority taking away their right to free speech and guns and whatever else they can get away with to punish people that don't think or agree with them.

Wolfhag