Regardless of country why can't political parties find a middle ground on many issues?

Politicians near center are often accused of being too “wishy washy”.

So it’s a show of stupid strength ?
It is only extreme right or left?

Politicians truly believe that My way is the ONLY way and whoever blinks first loses!!!

1) The public is generally stupid and does not understand nuance.

2) It is much easier for a politician or a party to take an extreme view (right or left) because it is easier to defends than a nuanced view.

3) Please refer to my answer #1 above.

Obama blew it out of the water. I still can’t wrap my brain around how electing a half black man for president could cause such an upheaval. I don’t get it.

They can. Those arrangements are called coalitions.

It’s a competition thing. Why go half way when you might win the whole game??
There is no center for both parties. There is only the space in between the two.

Opinions differ, and the more people that get together, the more opinions there will be waiting to be considered.

There are those who are trying to appease as many people as possible, but nobody can make everyone happy.

“Middle ground” just means that nobody gets what they want.

The larger picture is that most political disagreements tend to be noise. A show to keep the public thinking that’s the actual power struggle in their country. This keeps them focused on that, and not on how the whole system is designed to keep the actual powers continuing to gain power and wealth while not making the news at all.

The noise of seemingly significant disagreement in politics is useful to the actual entities in power, because it keeps public attention off of them, so the public doesn’t interfere with their exploitations.

And the actual powers control the POTUS too. As Bill Hicks once quipped, “They take each newly elected President into a dark room, show them the Zapruder Film, then ask, “Any questions?”

People seem to think “middle ground” is just compromise. It is not. Middle ground in politics can mean that but usually it means that there may be several issues that they side with the other party on. Most people are like this. The ones who don’t generally can’t or won’t think for themselves. It’s more like team sports to them. They’re often the most vocal about politics as well. There may be a hand full of people who really believe everything their party says or does and have given things a good amount of thought but they are outliers.

”And the actual powers control the POTUS too.”
@NoMoreY_Aagain The “actual powers” being…, who?

The left has been “meeting in the middle” since Reagan and the right keeps moving further to the right. That’s why the “establishment left” is basically further right on economic policy than most Republicans were in the 80’s/90’s. They’ve been boiling the frog for decades now. The “left’s” biggest achievement in recent memory is arguably Obamacare which was dreamed up by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation back in the 90’s as a counter to continuing FDR’s legacy by establishing universal healthcare.

What’s crazy is that guys like Bernie didn’t used to be considered radical. They were simply left of center. The fact that he’s now considered an extremist by some just goes to show how far both parties have drifted right.

This is not opinion, it’s an objective fact. Look at how you have the people on the left such as FDR in history, and then on the “right” you had guys like Eisenhower with a top marginal income tax rate north of 90%. Nixon created the EPA.

Outside of a few hot button issues like abortion and firearms where the current two parties differ most today is on economics. The left has lost a lot of people on economics for two main reasons: Their pet projects come with spending/tax plans that are lofty and unsustainable. Even though candidates like Bernie likely never intend to follow through with what they are promising it still scares people away. The second is they put too much focus on social issues and they generally ignore the economy.
Most people with a diversified retirement account saw 30% return last year. I can bet we’ll see Trump again because I’m not hearing anything from the left that will keep that train going. Where the left have become radical is in their fiscal policy. They talk like they don’t understand money at all. It’s mostly just pandering and lip service though which make me feel a little better about people like Sanders.
Personally, I have at least one hot button issue that keeps me from throwing votes to the left. The bulk of the reasons are economic. I still have reservations about voting Republican though because there are specific things I disagree with strongly.

@ARE_you_kidding_me ”...ignore the economy…”

When you refer to “the economy” are you mainly referring to the stock market?

No.

@gorillapaws

Pretty much. The “extreme left” Obama was basically just a step or two to the right of Nixon.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Yeah, you’re right.

Reagan: took the US from the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor.

Clinton: Created the largest budget surplus in our nation’s history.

Bush II: Took that largest budget surplus and turned it into the largest budget deficit in our nation’s history.

Obama: Never managed to run a surplus, but did shrink the deficit considerable.

Trump: On pace to run another record budget deficit.

But yeah, it’s the Democrats who have unsustainable spending plans.

@Darth_Algar Once in office politicians seldom do what they say they will.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

These aren’t things they said, these are things they did.

@LadyMarissa Politicians truly believe that My way is the ONLY way and whoever blinks first loses!!!

Tony Evers called lawmakers in Thursday to act on guns. GOP leaders rejected it within seconds.
(Article from Nov 8th, 2019)

How the hell are we going to get anywhere if “My way or the highway” is the mentality of our politicians? We aren’t. It’s a childish mindset to have and is NOT for the greater good of the public. BTW, I am not starting a debate on guns. I don’t care about your personal views on guns. All I’m getting at, is that if somebody feels something is a big enough issue that there needs to be some sort of discussion, it should happen. That discussion may lead somewhere and you may realize you have more in common with democrats or republicans (Whatever the opposite party is for you) Than you think.

We just need to talk but with no one willing to listen to the other side it’s not going to change.

@Darth_Algar We can talk on and on about which side did what to no end. There are a lot of mitigating factors behind your “list” as well. Presidents don’t get to pick those circumstances. If you asked me the most detrimental President to our economy was Clinton and it was a few small things that made a huge impact later on. He killed the glass steagall act which was one of the major factors that lead to the financial crisis in 2008. Signing NAFTA was another even though NAFTA was initially a Reagan thing. Even with the past it’s what is coming out of the mouths of politicians now that are the topic of discussion.

”There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” ~John Adams.

Could be the problem is that there are so many damn issues that having 2 parties (and having tons of people say that being in the middle is bad, in an attempt to force people to “pick a side”) is the problem. Most issues are not black and white so having two parties essentially forces issues to be black and white is kind of dumb.

@rebell Well that’s the $65,000 question isn’t it? Trumps “Deep State”? Eisenhower’s “Military Industrial Complex”? Other states men have hinted at this too. Including Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson.

@ARE_you_kidding_me “Presidents don’t get to pick those circumstances.”

Presidents don’t set the budget? Since when?

@SergeantQueen

Two-party dominance is what you get with a first-past-the-post/winner-takes-all system. John Adams helped set that system up.

@Darth_Algar Some presidents have the luxury of a quiet term without things like 911 going on in the background.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Even with 9/11 Bush dragged us into two pointless, and expensive wars, thus ballooning the deficit.

Yeah and ole Orange hair is dragging you into another with Iran,but it’s those damn Dems that are the spend aholics.

Hindsight yes, but not at the time.

Hindsight? Every reasonable person on the planet knew that Iraq was going to be a huge mistake, and that Bin Laden could have been pursued and removed without a full-scale military invasion.

No, most were completely behind the operations in Iraq at the time. It was only after the truth came out that WMD’s were fake intel did people object to the invasion.

Note: I said every reasonable person. The majority of people are not reasonable.

I don’t believe that, I do believe most people are reasonable.

I feel this comic sums up the big picture and I agree the origin is probably medieval and/or ancient Roman.

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Not sure how anyone could take a good, honest look at human civilization and come to that conclusion, but whatever gets you through I suppose.

@Darth_Algar It has taken and endless stream of reasonable people doing reasonable things for humanity not only to survive this long but thrive. Some just have a negative/pessimistic outlook on things I guess.

Yeah, we’re good at clearing hurdles , but we do not, on the whole, act reasonably. We’re not reasonable creatures. We’re emotional. We act impulsively, without thinking our actions though, only considering the consequences after we’ve acted.