Many are hopeful that our politics will return to the civility of the past. However, I do not believe that is possible. Democrats have still not learned that we are now in a different political world. In the past, each party would debate the value and wisdom of their policies. Usually, the winner was the candidate with the highest credibility and charisma. That is how the authors of our Constitution believed a democracy would always work. It was impossible for them to imagine a country where one group of voters could be easily manipulated to hate another group of voters using absurd accusations, outrageous lies, and false conspiracies. They could not imagine anyone putting party above country. In 2009, while Americans were losing their homes and jobs, Republicans blocked every one of the recession-recovery bills proposed by Obama. They did not want Democrats to get credit for the recovery. Then in the next election, they attacked Democrats for a slow recovery. This is not government for the people. It is obscene, un-American party politics.

Republicans are now planning to cancel all public debates because they do not want to be held accountable for their deceitful and unethical campaigning. Also, Republicans are planning to pass state laws that allow them to select presidential electors without any relation to the actual vote counts. In fact, they did this in 2020. But did not get away with it. This is very serious, yet many Democrats think these are only minor disagreements and their policies of helping the working class will prevail.

The Republican campaign of hatred has been so successful that there is nothing that can be done or said to reverse it back to the days of decent campaigning on the issues. The reader may be skeptical, so let’s look at what has happened. Here are some examples of the irrational and illogical things many Republicans sincerely believe. These are not beliefs of only a few extremists, but of many Republicans.

 � The Sandy Hook and Parkland massacres of children was staged by actors

 � Democrats are Satanist-globalist actively pursuing global genocide using Covid.

 � Fox polling and all the other polls showed Trump had no chance of winning, yet they continue to believe the election was stolen.

 � The KKK is a group of liberals

 � Mark Zuckerberg bribed election officials in swing states to steal the 2020 elections.

 � All the thousands of gun killings and mass murders of little children is not a problem.

 � geoengineers manipulate the weather to create hurricanes, floods, droughts, snowstorms, tornadoes, and even earthquakes.

 � Covid vaccines have octopus-shaped animals and microchips to control voters.

 � Democrats drain the blood out of babies.

 � If everyone had a gun there would be no gun killings.

 � Hillary ran a child sex-trafficking ring from a pizza restaurant.

 � The ghost of JFK would appear in Dallas to expose the “Deep State”.

 � Biden is an android robot.

The list goes on, but the point is clear that many gullible people believe the most bizarre nonsense without a bit of verifiable proof. It seems impossible that anyone could be so naà �ve to believe such amazing, fact-free foolishness. How is this possible?

This did not happen suddenly. It happened over many years. Until 1987, parties were held accountable for any disinformation they promoted. We had the Fairness in Media regulations that did not limit free speech but required that the party under attack had to be given equal airtime to disprove the accusation. This eliminated the slanderous lies directed at a party or at an individual. It is not a coincidence that immediately after Fairness was repealed by the Republicans, Rush Limbaugh plugged in his microphone, and the world has never been the same since that disaster. Rush went on a non-stop rampage of twisting and spinning and lying about everything to cultivate a subculture of illogical hatred of Democrats.

Over the past few decades, the far-right media have expanded Limbaugh’s crusade of disinformation to build as much unjustified hatred of Democrats as possible. If people believe that a group is extremely evil, they will accept anything about that group no matter how impossible. No number of facts or data or events would get these people to understand that they are being manipulated with one-sided false information. They hold deep passionate feelings that they are being oppressed and exploited by an illegitimate government. They have been stoked to such an extreme frenzy of hatred that they believe violent rebellion against America is an appropriate course of action. It is easier to get your cat to sing Carmen than it is to get these victims of political manipulation to develop open minds and independent critical thinking.

Republicans have repeatedly proven that they put party over country. Trump was impeached twice, and, in both cases, Republicans refused to honor legal subpoenas and voted strictly 100% for the party ignoring all the documentation and evidence.

FIRST REMEDY

America is locked in a destructive and permanent stalemate between Republicans and Democrats. I believe there are only two remedies to save democracy and America. The first is that Democrats must stop campaigning like they are on a university debate team. Democrats are stuck in 1960 believing the voters are too smart to believe all those ridiculous conspiracies so they pretend they do not exist and ramble on about the deficit or NATO putting their audiences to sleep. Compared to Republicans, Democrats suffer from a severe paucity of passion. Democrats need to change their approach to politics and become as aggressive as crocodiles on crack. Democrats do not understand that the feelings of the public have been slowly twisted over many years and they are not the least bit interested in rational political dialogue. Hillary said, “When they go low, we go high”. Hillary was right and that’s why she lost the election. If the Democrats do not wake up and go on the offense, they will lose a lot of elections. Imagine if Biden faced the cameras and showed how determined he was to hold Republicans accountable for all their lies. Imagine if Biden loudly exposed all the Republican conspiracies with facts and challenged them to prove their deceitful false accusations. Rather than fight Trump’s big election lie with courts and recounts, Biden should have forcefully condemned the lack of evidence and asked how it was possible for all the prelection polls to have been wrong. He should have made them explain how so many down-ballot Republicans won if the voting was rigged. Instead, Democrats folded their tents and quietly drifted off into the sunset. It looks like Biden is just Hillary 2.0. Democrats have been successful at government but disastrous at communicating with the public. Few people know that the economy has always done better under Democrats. Few people know that 94 of Republican administration advisors have been convicted of felonies with only 1 Democrat having been convicted. Democrats refuse to inform the voters of facts like this and then they wonder why they lose elections.

Voters are attracted to candidates who are forceful, articulate, energetic, and show strong leadership. Hillary was none of that. It was obvious to many of us observers that she was an extremely weak candidate. She probably would have done worse running against any other Republican. In 2024, Democrats need to get behind a candidate who is an aggressive engaging speaker and who does not put up with all the Republican slander and disinformation. He would get big cheers at his rallies every time he mentioned one of the ridiculous Republican conspiracies.

SECOND REMEDY

The second remedy is favored by many on both sides of the great divide. It recognizes that nothing can heal the intense hatred of Democrats that Republicans have cultivated over the years. The constant Republican tsunami of disinformation and conspiracies, such as those listed above, have created a chasm far too large to be brought back to normal. Instead of moving towards a climate of compromise, Republicans have moved to the extreme position of never voting for anything proposed by Democrats regardless of what the voters want or the pros and cons. Although nearly 100% of all Americans want background checks on all gun buyers, every Republican in Congress voted against background checks. That is not government for the people. That is vicious, un-American party politics.

The remedy presented here seems too extreme for most Americans, yet it continues to gain favor by many. A reasonable solution that would make most people happy is the division of the United States into separate red areas and blue areas. This does not have to be total separation into independent countries as was intended in the Civil War of 1861-65. These regions could remain under the umbrella of the US but would have their own Constitutions and Supreme Courts that apply only within each region. The central US government would provide a united military and would settle disputes on trade and intraregional disputes between regions. The federal government would continue to provide US passports. Controversial issues such as Civil Rights, voting restrictions, health care, labor laws, and immigration would be handled at the region level. Federal taxes would be greatly reduced, and state taxes would be replaced by regional taxes.

The far-west states could be one region, the southern states could be another region and the northeast states could be another region, Currently, these states already have very different state laws. California has virtually no Republicans in state government. Most red states have very few Democrats in state government. The citizens of these regions have different opinions on many issues. Red states want to make all abortions illegal while blue states want abortions outlawed only after 4 months of pregnancy. Red states want no gun laws of any kind while blue states want gun laws that limit ownership only to those who meet requirements. Red states want a state religion of Christianity while blue states want no state endorsement of any religion. In the current 50 states, these contentious issues will forever be highly divisive.

These and other issues are irreconcilable differences that contribute to the extreme animosity on both sides. People strongly object to being forced to live under federal laws created by other regions. This would be a big change that could not be done in a short period of time. It would have to be phased in over a few years. Most of the federal government’s departments would be migrated to the regions. The CIA could remain as it is while regional versions of the FBI could be created. The alternative is to continue forever in our current state of hostilities. Each side can’t stand the other’s side. Friends and families have been permanently damaged across the country. This is no way to run a country. For more details, graphs, tables, and statistics on this, read “The Liberal Record – How Liberals Changed the World”.