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The Heart of Everything's avatar

Thanks for sharing Dale--I appreciate the call for something other than extreme partisanship. It's easy to complain about what the current administration has done, but several bipartisan efforts were accomplished--the CHIPS and Science Act, the infrastructure act, but once Republicans took the House, efforts at bipartisanship, the border bill for example that key Republicans helped craft, screeched to a halt. This is an over-simplification but post election, it's become a sort of giant "your body, my choice" kind of response--"we won" has devolved into calls for retribution, going after any media that criticized the nominee or published a poll that didn't flatter him, all accompanied by a whole bunch of name calling.

Perhaps I've missed it, but I haven't heard one Republican talk about working across the aisle to address issues facing the country. I used to hope that a new party would emerge, but I think that's naive. It's not a left and right issue or a cultural issue that would prevent it as much as it is an issue of money and the power that comes with it. Consider the influence of billionaires who control the media--not just the obvious right wing e.g., the FOX and Newsmax variety, but the WSJ and the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post; the social media from X to FB all billionaire owned, the 15 billionaires currently proposed to serve in the incoming administration, where will compromise emerge in that group? Hearing Musk threaten to fund primary opponents for any Republican who doesn't bend the knee to his demands--is that how a democracy should function? Will we become a country where anyone of a different mind or holding a dissenting opinion is threatened and sued or imprisoned? I thought we were supposed to be free to disagree? This seems more like something that would happen in a dictatorship--if you disagree with me I'll crush you. Put another way, I'm rich and I can do what I want--but sure, it's the poor and immigrants that are the problem? Do we suddenly believe that being rich is synonymous with intelligence? That self-interest should take precedence over the general welfare, over liberty and justice, over the pursuit of happiness?

We desperately need campaign finance reform--and I don't know when character and integrity became unimportant in our leaders, but it would be nice to see character matter at least a little bit.

That said, the anger and disdain of the responses to your proposal don't give me much hope.

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InVinoVeritas's avatar

This is a lot of writing to say, in essence, I don't like President Trump or any of his followers.

There may be some valid points herein, but they are quite overshadowed by the palpable dislike the author has for the aforementioned. Hence the root cause of the division started well back into the Clinton Administration and further employed during each subsequent administration of "if they don't think, believe or act like we do, then they are unacceptable and dangerous to America." I need point no further than to Hillary Clinton referring to millions of Americans as a "basket of deplorable."

Not one to lose an opportunity, President Biden referred to President Trump's followers as "garbage." This op-ed smacks of the same.

The disdain clearly evident in this op-ed and throughout the current Democratic Party for those with opposing viewpoints is a dangerous contagion. One simply cannot refer to someone with an opposing viewpoint, in one sentence, as "garbage" then expect the same person to amicably work with them to resolve differences.

All other points made herein are made moot by the hateful rhetoric. One would think someone with such an esteemed career and position within the greater South Dakota legal and political spectrum would be possessed of the decorum necessary to address the differences and help foster an environment where all endeavor to resolve issues. Evidently this is not the case.

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