alt Hacker NewsRight, democrats were ALWAYS looking for compromise. Hell, democrats have to compromise with their own party!
If you doubt me, simply go read votes from the past 20 years, and compare it with say 1960-1980. Republicans do not cross the aisle anymore.
The interesting part is that at some point republicans had so propagandized their voters against the very concept of governance that "Elect me to office for the next 6 years and I promise nothing will get done" was a decades long strategy that worked! The more republicans obstructed, including preventing republican voters from getting things they claim to want, the more republicans got voted in. For decades now, republicans that compromise with democrats have been primaried by less collaborative republicans.
Imagine a judge getting elected for insisting they will never hear another case!
None of this should be controversial, republican politicians have literally stated this as their goal and promise.
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For those looking for something to Google or concrete facts to back this up, "obstructionism" is the proper term for this.
Some key examples: Reagan saying "the government is the problem", Newt Gingrich starting the modern obstructionist movement in congress with the Contact with America (also backed by the Heritage Foundation, which is behind project 2025), and Mitch McConnel breaking norms to practically shut down congress under his leadership, openly stating his intent several times.
Republicans don't want to lead in any practical sense. They want to break the government and privatize the pieces so they can buy in and profit off of them. Anyone who can't buy in gets screwed, because services will cost more to pay for the investment and profits that the investors demand.
Trump's biggest achievement last term was a massive tax cut for the rich. So to balance to budget, they now want to destroy as many government services as they can, using "efficiency" as an excuse.
Breaking things is great when you run a social media company. Worst case scenario, your website goes offline for a few hours. When you start breaking the government, people die. Of course, if you're richer than God, you don't have to worry about the fallout. It doesnt matter if the FDA falls apart and leads to massive food contamination when you only eat Wagyu beef from your private ranch. People will die, you pay less taxes, and you only see it as a success.
There are many other critiques to be made, but this is just the surface.
This even happens at a local level. I witnessed a Republican county councilor who was beginning to work with a local community on a serious issue they were having with their ferry. She got replaced with someone who wants to obstruct and cut in all cases, which serves as an object lesson for anyone else on the council with an at-risk seat.
For some reason the people who keep saying government doesn't work are working very hard to make government not work.