Originally posted by Reid:
I think people might be slowly accepting that America has deeper structural problems than just who's sitting in the presidential seat. Like the issue isn't just Trump, it's Mitch McConnell, Republicans generally, the billionaires who back Republicans, and the obvious cluelessness or unwillingness of Democrats to respond to it.
I think this is largely true. I mean, I also think that the story of Republican obstructionism has really prominent ever since 2010, when Democrats lost their control over the government. I think a lot of people remember when Mitch McConnell gave that infamous PowerPoint presentation in congress saying that the party’s chief priority would be to ensure that Obama was a 1-term president, and the means of achieving it would be to obstruct and deny Democrats anything that could be spun as a legislative victory. I’m not sure what’s really new. Maybe it’s that anyone who had even shred of optimism that Republicans would be willing to compromise has now surrendered that optimism, which is partially what accounts for the Democrats’ move to the left. I think that’s at least part of it. But obviously there are also cultural aspects to polarization too, and part of it is the growing confidence of the left in its worldview and orthodoxies.