Do you want to see more cooperation in politics?

Yeah that would be nice. Difficult with winner takes it all system and attitude.

Yes. As much as I would like to see things like MFA, smaller military budgets, widespread climate change action and such, the ultimate role of a democratic government is to compromise and deliver policy that no one loves, but most can live with.

A rare and refreshing outlook.

I think too often we view compromise as a four-letter word, a weakness, like we are giving in to demands. The reality is compromise is simply working together to meet shared goals while not taking on too much of what you don't want.

That makes it seem like a 2 side issue, Republicans have adopted a platform of obstruction, how about we start there.

Yes and no. It really depends on the issue.

I want more bipartisanship and compromise, but at the same time, I dont want people to side, or even compromise with lunatics.

Opposition culture is bad, but so is compromising with people who are just... wrong. The ideal way forward would be objectivity. But I guess compromising with those who are just wrong, is better than politics being a zig-zag tug of war where one administration proceeds to undo all the changes made by the previous one. Consistancy is healthy, this tug of war... isn't benefiting anyone.

Here in Sweden left and right wing parties are far more likely to cooperate. Probably because everyone is now opposed to the lunatics known as the Sweden Democrats (who combines the worst aspects of left wing politcs and right wing politics into one populist disaster).

I'd like to see facts return first. The age of Trump has shown us that facts don't matter and made half of our electorate moronic conspiracy theorists.

Fix that first, then we'll talk cooperation.

The problem is the two party system.

It makes everything black and white, right or wrong with people. There is no shades of gray.

Honestly, not really. Twelve years ago I thought more cooperation and comprise was something worth striving for, but since then I came to realize that Republicans in congress were intentionally arguing in bad faith because they wanted power back more than they wanted to help people in the middle of the worst financial downturn in our lifetime.

I don't know what the purpose is of compromising with people who are arguing in bad faith.

@Serraph105: Yeah, these arguments always pop up during Democratic administrations. I can't imagine why, lol.

Yes and No. I would like to see politicians working together for the good of the people but the GOP seems to think that means they get what they want and when they don't they whine about it. Some issues should NOT be sold out for the sake of compromise.

Very true, especially when you have folks in the GOP saying and believing things like this:

Basically even if something looks good to the GOP, if it makes a democrat look good they probably won't work to pass it.

Troublesome with victor takes it all framework and disposition

Tell me, how often have you seen politicians work together and it actually benefitted someone other than themselves when they've done so?

Surely you don't believe that is a one way street, do you?

The political climate took a hard turn for the worst when the GWB ran and won the office. Each passing year has gotten even worse.

No.

Exist in reality and abide facts, and we'll talk. Live in delusion, and cooperation will only harm by operating in furtherance of it. The GOP continue to live in the belief the election was invalid and they've placed their trust in a proven liar and conspiracy theorist....I've absolutely no interest in dealing or compromising with these loons.

As Ronald Reagan would say; government isn't the solution, it's the problem. A lack of competition in many districts creates career politicians who only cater to a specific base, groups who prefer scorched earth policy with no compromise to other parties.

Aren't elections in US invalid if less than 50% votes?

@horgen: Depends on the election, and what sort of primary was conducted. Plurality is common in the United States.

@Stevo_the_gamer: This right here is a large part of why I think congressional districts should be mapped by an impartial commission, or computer algorithm, or something because politicians drawing their own districts leads to too many of these safe seats.

I don't, but historically Democrats tend to be more bipartisan than the GOP. Not all the time, of course, because Dems can be assholes too.

....but how do you stop corrupt politicians from injecting their bias into the algorithm?

Don't give politicians direct control of creating it. Look, I'm sure someone may figure out a way to undermine the process, but even an imperfect system would be harder to corrupt than our current method of just letting the politicians draw their own districts.

For an example, California has state districts drawn by a commission made up of 14 people; 5 Democrats, 5 Republican, 4 third party or independents. Nominees for the commission cannot have served in office, lobbied, worked on a politician's staff, or donated more than $2,000 to an elected candidate. They draw the map and must follow an extensive set of guidelines when creating the districts. Voters can turn overturn the map with a referendum if they don't like it.

This doesn't guarantee that no politician will ever manage to gain influence, but it would be very difficult to do so.

Here's more details if you are interested:

https://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_California

No. Politicians who "work well together" tend to be politicians who will scratch each others backs. Bush and Obama were nice guys, pragmatic lead-from-behind types. Yet the Tea Party, BLM, and the alt-right were born out of them. You can blame Trump and current republicans/democrats for inflaming these groups all you want, fact is they have nothing to do with these groups being created in the first place. They are a symptom, not a cause.

People look at the 90's as a period of "people in government getting along" but was that a good thing? Our government was almost in universal agreement that the events in Waco and Ruby Ridge were completely legit and the government did nothing wrong. Gun sales went through the roof, firearms manufactures were actually running out of ammo because so many people were buying, then Oklahoma was bombed in what I believe is the most deadly domestic terror attack in our history. Our government got along during that time, but what good did it do? It created a deep distrust in our government that never wentaway. I know my view of government was solidified during that period.

I like leaders who takes stands, and politicians who aren't afraid to challenge him/her. Gridlock in Washington and politicians at each others throats is preferable politics to me. American system was designed that way.

@vl4d_l3nin: "People look at the 90's as a period of 'people in government getting along'"

Snort! Those people didn't pay attention in the 90s. That was the era of Gingrich.

Take off the partisan blinders. Politicians agreed on a lot more back then, and it planted some bad seeds.

@vl4d_l3nin: Gingrich was notoriously combative and led a notoriously combative Congress. If you believe the bad seeds were sewn in the 90s, it wasn't due to a high level of bipartisanship and cooperation.

There's no such thing as impartiality. So you'd have a group who may feign impartiality basically controlling the political future of the country. Who writes the algorithm? If you're so concerned with who is in office, how they get there, and how long they stay in, you should also be concerned with how much power "voters" give them every year. As Steve said in his Reagan quote, government is the problem, not the solution, and we wouldn't have the separation of powers that we do if our founders weren't aware of it.

Like the housing bubble that collapse and gave us a massive recession, the Patriot Act, allowing China to enter the WTO. I agree, when politicians agree on something, it's to **** the rest of us.

Fair enough, but compromise doesn't necessarily mean absolute agreement (it's actually based on concessions). I'm not asking our politicians to collude, either.

I'm simply saying they can maybe work together a bit more for the benefit of their constituents. Maybe even put the country before their respective parties....now there's a thought!

I don't blame you and @vl4d_l3nin for being cynics--especially in light of the past 20+ years--but I do think the US government is one of the best things ever written down on paper, I just wish we could realize it and put it into practice while, at the same time, not be literalists.

@eoten: Like I said, there may still be corrupt people who are able to influence how the districts are drawn. But I can almost guarentee it would be an improvement from our current system, where politicians draw their own districts.

The housing bubble was created by banks and consumers. Most significantly was JP Morgan Chase creating the Credit Default Swap. The government's main role was to loosen regulations which allowed these riskier loans. The reason they did this is because banks lobbied hard for it. This is part of why I don't believe deregulation is always a good thing, and that there should be stronger limits on how much money can be thrown at politicians.

Pretty sure Clinton AG Janet Reno set a precedent by threatening to prosecute lenders who didn't give loans to people who had low income. Lenders didn't really have much of a choice.

Compromise is what leads to things like those massive pork bills where it's basically everyone agreeing to spend on each others' pet projects, thousands of pages, passed overnight without anyone reading it or anyone in the press or the general public reviewing it. No thanks. Gridlock is better than that.

Not with extremists, no!

I think at this time we really need it. Unfortunately the far left and right will never allow it to happen. Just look at how most of the people act on this forum.

Can't work with cultists, especially the ones who change their morals/ideology depending of who's in power.

@vl4d_l3nin: Oh yes. So floored by the awesome power of Janet Reno, Wall Street Banks had no choice but to continue her bidding years after she left office.

Look, there is a simple reason credit default swaps caught on like they did, they generated amazing returns on investment with low perceived risk. Housing prices had been steadily climing for decades at that point, and the longer that went on, the more banks wanted in. No one was forced into this practice, they were just following the money.

JP Morgan Chase created the credit default swap, but they ultimately realised they were a bad idea. So they sold them off and were largely unscathed when the whole thing blew up in everyone else's faces. In fact, in 2009 when the world was burning, their CEO told their investors they were having their best year ever.

Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything nefarious here. I think lenders really thought this was a win-win for everyone. Poor people could get houses, rich people got a seemingly safe investment to put their money into. Unfortunately the risks eventually caught up.

My point is you can't just use "government is the problem" as a blanket statement for all situations. While government was involved with the financial crisis, it wasn't really the cause of it.

@mrbojangles25: I’d rather republicans be less crazy, but I think the party will have to split for that to happen. There is a lot of middle ground between a moderate Republican and a mainstream Democrat.

But an evangelical southern conspiracy theorist Republican has nothing in common with anyone.

I think this is the biggest thing we need to work on. Mutual understanding, compromise, and identifying where we are similar instead of different.

Sad we focus so much on our differences and stereotype. I'm guilty of doing that myself, though tbh I blame the media on both sides for this.

@joebones5000: There are opportunities to work together without compromising your position if the other party is operating in good faith. A great example is a libertarian member of the Republican party working with the Democrats to decriminalize drugs. This is something Ron Paul did when he was in office. It's not always asking the firefighter to compromise with the arsonist.

Unfortunately, we're seeing more instances of politicians not acting in good faith, so they often vote against their own beliefs/positions anyway.

Speaking of cooperation, how did that work with this round of stimulus? No republicans voted for the bill, yet democrats by in large were on board with both of Trump's efforts in 2021. Tell me again how 'bOtH SiDez' are the same in their cooperation and dealings. It's lovely that they could sit on the sidelines and complain about federal tax breaks on children and unemployment insurance, yet turn around and present a bill that would eliminate the inheritance tax entirely.

What a joke.

@HoolaHoopMan: Oh yeah, they're not operating in good faith. Once again, they sacrificed Americans' well being for political gain.