HawkShack.com

I've been listening to Democrats for years now claim Trump was finally going to jail, getting pushed out of the election, and generally was beat by the Democrats.

Here he is running for fricking president again. No jailtime. Some fines that may not be overturned. And no punishment whatsoever for anything he's done.

Just a bunch of lip service from D.C. and back and forth rubbish in the media showing us Joe Biden and his family have skeletons in their closet as well with Hunter Biden and his scumbag activities.

Now we have two of the oldest presidential candidates in history going at each other. One that seems to be losing his mental faculties by the day and yet is going to trotted out there by the Democrats because they can't find anyone better. The other so focused on winning for his personal glory that he will do or say anything to win some votes and rile up his base to make them believe a bunch of stuff that he doesn't even plan to do or even care about driven almost purely by polls and monitored by his marketing team. He runs his campaign like a business and could care less about what his followers want and yet his followers are too wrapped up in hating the opposing side that they don't care.

This is truly the worst election in my lifetime. I am going to do my best to ignore the next four years as far as politics go as much as possible. The Democrats and Republicans are so crazy and ridiculous at this point they are asking each other idiot gotcha questions like "What is a woman?" and "What caused the Civil War" and our politicians are so stupid and ridiculous at this point, they can't answer what should be settled questions.

Worst damn election and political period I can recall in my lifetime.

Agreed. Probably the worst election in my lifetime as well. However, did you watch SOTU tonight? “Slow” Biden still has his facilities. Maybe he took genius or fountain of youth pills. Bottom line - Joe is not done. He was sharp, witty, and spontaneous.
In the other hand, Trump is batshit crazy and (IMHO) Biden is the better option. Trump and his MAGA cronies, like MTG, were an embarrassment tonight. MTG was wearing a MAGA hat - violation.

Biden will get a boost from this performance and I’ll be voting for spunky Joe in November.

Trump's going to win. Biden is a horrible candidate, way too old. Not that Trump is that much better, but when contrasted with Biden, Trump looks as sharp as a Jeopardy contestant. The problem is that Biden is the only top Democrat who has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Trump. Biden's job approval has been in the low 40's for several years. As Trump found out 4 years ago, anytime an incumbent POTUS seeking re-election has a job approval rating under 50%, it's bad news.

This is as depressing of an election as I've ever experienced. The two choices we've been given are horrible, worse than in 2016, the first time since I stared voting in '72 that I didn't vote for the R candidate. Some elections were actually entertaining, like in '68 when Pat Paulson ran as a spoof: "This nation would be a lot richer if it wasn't for all the poor people!", or in '92 when Bush 41 was running against Michael Dukakis: What do Mikael Dukakis and panty hose have in common? They both irritate a Bush (capital B optional). Or what do Lawrence Taylor and Kitty Dukakis have in common? A: They both like to blow a little dope. At least elections were good for an occasional laugh. Not so today.

I'm so frigging tired of seeing and hearing Trump. He's been in the news cycle constantly, which is one of the reasons why he's maintained his popularity. Sure, the libs dance in delight when he's brought to court, but what they fail to realize is that every time they haul his ass into court for whatever reason, it inspires all of his moonbat supporters.

I liked a couple of the R candidates, specifically Chris Christie and Nikki Haley. But I didn't see any major Dem that I liked. RFK Jr? Gimme a break.

when contrasted with Biden, Trump looks as sharp as a Jeopardy contestant

What a partisan load of crap! I can't wait for (well moderated) face to face debates to dispel this nonsense.

when contrasted with Biden, Trump looks as sharp as a Jeopardy contestant

c_hawkbob wrote:What a partisan load of crap! I can't wait for (well moderated) face to face debates to dispel this nonsense.

Partisan? I happen to be voting for Biden.

And whine about it all you want, because I'm not the only person who thinks that the age question is more of a problem for Biden than it is Trump:

Three-quarters of Americans (74%) said Biden was too old to run for another term in a survey conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post in September. That number represented a 6% increase since May, a month after Biden launched his second White House bid.

Half of Americans (50%) thought the same of Trump, according to the poll.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-t ... =104984287

You are extremely overconfident in Biden's ability to think on his feet and perhaps the only person who I know of that "can't wait for a face to face debate". I'll bet that Biden's handlers are having nightmares about Sleepy Joe having to go in front of a live camera in a debate setting. Who knows how that scenario will unfold.

The chants of “four more years” echoing through the chambers leave no doubt. They’re not finished. America is in good hands……

I won't be voting for Trump. If all Biden does is block Trump from winning, I guess he did his job. Since I've been wrong every single time thinking the Republican Party had any interest in purging their party of the Trump stink, I'm proven wrong. I guess the Bush power is gone. All the wealthy backers of the Republican Party want is a guy who can win and deregulate and maintain the low taxes. They don't care about a president who knows how to manage American power abroad or maintain any sort of decency in public. It's a real shame the party of Lincoln, Reagan, and Eisenhower is now a clown show led by a reality TV star who acts like a vulgar, selfish, ignorant man interested only in glorifying himself.

That sycophantic worm McConnell endorsed Trump. Even after Trump insulted his wife and him, that worm McConnell still crawls on his belly for Trump. What a weak and pathetic man. Lapdog McConnell.

What a sickening Republican Party this is to cow and lap the feet of Donald Trump.

Stream Hawk wrote:Agreed. Probably the worst election in my lifetime as well. However, did you watch SOTU tonight? “Slow” Biden still has his facilities. Maybe he took genius or fountain of youth pills. Bottom line - Joe is not done. He was sharp, witty, and spontaneous.
In the other hand, Trump is batshit crazy and (IMHO) Biden is the better option. Trump and his MAGA cronies, like MTG, were an embarrassment tonight. MTG was wearing a MAGA hat - violation.

Biden will get a boost from this performance and I’ll be voting for spunky Joe in November.

Yeah, I watched. Biden got up for one speech where he avoided, for the most part, the mental deficiencies he's been exhibiting recently. That drastic of an about face raises my eyebrows at least, and it was in an event tailored to make him look as good as possible (as it would for any sitting president in an election year). If he's really turned a corner on that, then, great, but I need to see more than the state of the union to have any confidence in him.

c_hawkbob wrote:What a partisan load of crap! I can't wait for (well moderated) face to face debates to dispel this nonsense.

Say what you will, but it's no slam dunk. He wasn't particularly strong 4 years ago.

I never watch SOTU speeches or rebuttals. But my understanding is that Biden performed remarkably well.

But that was a rehearsed, staged speech that he can practice and read from a script. The problem is in situations where he can't read off a teleprompter, like news conferences and debates.

In the 100 years since Calvin Coolidge took office, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan held as few news conferences each year as the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Traveling in Ireland last week, President Biden abandoned the decades-old tradition of holding a news conference while abroad. On Thursday, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia met with Mr. Biden, but the two did not hold a news conference together, another practice of his predecessors that Mr. Biden has frequently chosen to skip. After the meeting, Mr. Petro took questions from reporters — alone — at microphones in front of the West Wing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/us/p ... media.html

Biden's handlers are obviously frightened to death to trot Sleepy Joe in front of a live audience and ask him to think on his feet. He'll say stuff like "Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people". He once called Kamala Harris a "great President," said that the US has 54 states. In the same session where he disputed the claim that he couldn't remember when his son died, he referred to the Egyptian pres. as the President of Mexico. The list of gaffes and brain farts goes on and on.

It's not that Trump is that much better. He recently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. Not that it makes his gaffes any better than Biden's, but Trump's doesn't seem to be age related as much as they do pure stupidity, or at least that's the impression I get.

But what's worse with Biden and what sets him apart from Trump is that Biden will often times end speeches at strange moments, gets physically disorientated, will walk off the podium in the wrong direction, trips over stairs, looks lost and confused. Unlike Trump, he's physically slow, looks stiff and rigid as he turns his body. If you had a loved one that was living by themselves and showing that kind of behavior, you'd put them in assisted living, something that I've personally had to do with my mother.

RiverDog wrote:I never watch SOTU speeches or rebuttals. But my understanding is that Biden performed remarkably well.

But that was a rehearsed, staged speech that he can practice and read from a script. The problem is in situations where he can't read off a teleprompter, like news conferences and debates.

In the 100 years since Calvin Coolidge took office, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan held as few news conferences each year as the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Traveling in Ireland last week, President Biden abandoned the decades-old tradition of holding a news conference while abroad. On Thursday, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia met with Mr. Biden, but the two did not hold a news conference together, another practice of his predecessors that Mr. Biden has frequently chosen to skip. After the meeting, Mr. Petro took questions from reporters — alone — at microphones in front of the West Wing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/us/p ... media.html

Biden's handlers are obviously frightened to death to trot Sleepy Joe in front of a live audience and ask him to think on his feet. He'll say stuff like "Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people". He once called Kamala Harris a "great President," said that the US has 54 states. In the same session where he disputed the claim that he couldn't remember when his son died, he referred to the Egyptian pres. as the President of Mexico. The list of gaffes and brain farts goes on and on.

It's not that Trump is that much better. He recently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. Not that it makes his gaffes any better than Biden's, but Trump's doesn't seem to be age related as much as they do pure stupidity, or at least that's the impression I get.

But what's worse with Biden and what sets him apart from Trump is that Biden will often times end speeches at strange moments, gets physically disorientated, will walk off the podium in the wrong direction, trips over stairs, looks lost and confused. Unlike Trump, he's physically slow, looks stiff and rigid as he turns his body. If you had a loved one that was living by themselves and showing that kind of behavior, you'd put them in assisted living, something that I've personally had to do with my mother.

I'd rather have senile than willfully neglectful, selfish, cowardly, and willing to feed the looney elements in his party to win at all costs while being too scared to really back his looney party members when the rubber hits the road.

I doubt any of the fake tough guy Republicans that vote for a worm like Trump would ever tolerate his treatment of them in the same way he has treated Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and just about anyone that disagrees with him insulting wives and them with such vulgar regularity just to paint himself as strong. It's false strength as he is another draft dodging fake tough guy worm representing a political party stuck with a vulgar, unworthy candidate to vote for.

Aseahawkfan wrote:I'd rather have senile than willfully neglectful, selfish, cowardly, and willing to feed the looney elements in his party to win at all costs while being too scared to really back his looney party members when the rubber hits the road.

I doubt any of the fake tough guy Republicans that vote for a worm like Trump would ever tolerate his treatment of them in the same way he has treated Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and just about anyone that disagrees with him insulting wives and them with such vulgar regularity just to paint himself as strong. It's false strength as he is another draft dodging fake tough guy worm representing a political party stuck with a vulgar, unworthy candidate to vote for.

Oh, me, too. There's no way in hell that I'm ever going to vote for Trump or his Republican brown nosers. IMO Mitch McConnell is the most hypocritical SOB that I've ever seen in the Senate. The man has no principles. How in the hell can anyone admit that a person tried to subvert an election yet still support him for re-election? And as far as other R's goes, I'll be watching my Congressman, Republican Dan Newhouse. He was one of the few R's who voted to impeach Trump. If he indorses him now, he won't be getting my vote.

But that wasn't my point. My point was that Biden is wholly unfit for office, and at least as far as age-related problems goes, is much worse off than Trump.

RiverDog wrote:Oh, me, too. There's no way in hell that I'm ever going to vote for Trump or his Republican brown nosers. IMO Mitch McConnell is the most hypocritical SOB that I've ever seen in the Senate. The man has no principles. How in the hell can anyone admit that a person tried to subvert an election yet still support him for re-election? And as far as other R's goes, I'll be watching my Congressman, Republican Dan Newhouse. He was one of the few R's who voted to impeach Trump. If he indorses him now, he won't be getting my vote.

But that wasn't my point. My point was that Biden is wholly unfit for office, and at least as far as age-related problems goes, is much worse off than Trump.

They are both the most unfit for office candidates in my lifetime. But at least Biden is unfit for reasons beyond his control, whereas Trump is unfit and has a party willing to sell out all their principles just to win and flip off the other side.

America has become a nation that I can only imagine other places look at as a joke. Don't know their own history. I know you don't discuss this issue, but can't figure out what a woman or man is any more. Teaching their children crap in schools that shouldn't even be a subject schools have to teach or take sides in. Encouraging a vulgar public discourse. Encouraging hate for immigrants based on appearance and country of association that amounts to little more than if you don't look like a person of European ancestry, you somehow don't belong. Teaching the Civil War was caused by something else other than slavery with "noble" Southerners as the fighters for liberty and States' Rights. The long list of garbage both of these parties teach to young people is long and completely against what we know of history, economics, science, manners, and general sense.

Basically making America look like a land of idiots run by technocrats and billionaires who can easily manipulate the moronic masses who can't even take the time to learn enough to govern their own nation in an intelligent manner.

I never imagined it would come to this. I only hope that we eventually get a leader who give America a reality check they will listen to and somehow purge the idiots from each party marginalizing them as they should be marginalized. America at some point has to move past this level of stupid in both parties and find their way back to better governance.

Aseahawkfan wrote:They are both the most unfit for office candidates in my lifetime. But at least Biden is unfit for reasons beyond his control, whereas Trump is unfit and has a party willing to sell out all their principles just to win and flip off the other side.

Yep. It's not even close. And going back through history, I can't see any two choices that the country has been given that were worse than these. I can remember people bitching about Bush-Gore being bad choices, but those two looks like saviors compared to Trump-Biden.

Aseahawkfan wrote:America has become a nation that I can only imagine other places look at as a joke. Don't know their own history. I know you don't discuss this issue, but can't figure out what a woman or man is any more. Teaching their children crap in schools that shouldn't even be a subject schools have to teach or take sides in. Encouraging a vulgar public discourse. Encouraging hate for immigrants based on appearance and country of association that amounts to little more than if you don't look like a person of European ancestry, you somehow don't belong. Teaching the Civil War was caused by something else other than slavery with "noble" Southerners as the fighters for liberty and States' Rights. The long list of garbage both of these parties teach to young people is long and completely against what we know of history, economics, science, manners, and general sense.

Again, I agree, but I'll go a step further. People call Trump a threat to democracy. He's not the real threat, it's the people that are too damn stupid to see that he's a threat that are the ones that are going to cause this country to fail. People are so susceptible to conspiracy theories, anything that the read or hear that appeals to them they'll cling onto.

One of the things about immigrants that you touched on hit a cord with me. From my experience, the majority of people who are anti-immigration, racist, et al, are lacking in intelligence. Subconsciously, they know that they are inferior. Immigrants and minorities represent a threat to them. There's also a natural tendency amongst all people to be suspicious of a person who does not speak the same language they do.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Basically making America look like a land of idiots run by technocrats and billionaires who can easily manipulate the moronic masses who can't even take the time to learn enough to govern their own nation in an intelligent manner.

I never imagined it would come to this. I only hope that we eventually get a leader who give America a reality check they will listen to and somehow purge the idiots from each party marginalizing them as they should be marginalized. America at some point has to move past this level of stupid in both parties and find their way back to better governance.

We can blame social media for a lot of what you've referred to. It allows people with the same mental disposition to communicate with each other, to feel like their racism isn't abnormal at all, that a lot of others share the same emotions as they do. It helps them rationalize their hatred. There is no motivation for them to grow and change as there would be if they were a relative anomaly. Social media is one of the major reasons why Trump got elected back in 2016.

Stream Hawk wrote:However, did you watch SOTU tonight? “Slow” Biden still has his facilities. Maybe he took genius or fountain of youth pills. Bottom line - Joe is not done. He was sharp, witty, and spontaneous.
In the other hand, Trump is batshit crazy and (IMHO) Biden is the better option. Trump and his MAGA cronies, like MTG, were an embarrassment tonight. MTG was wearing a MAGA hat - violation.

Biden will get a boost from this performance and I’ll be voting for spunky Joe in November.

Well, so much for Sleepy Joe's SOTU speech:

Just one day after President Biden delivered a State of the Union address many liberals said put to rest questions about his mental fitness, the president raised eyebrows with several gaffes in Pennsylvania.

"Pennsylvania, I have a message for you: Send me to Congress!" Biden shouted at one point, appearing to mix up the office he's running for. (Biden hasn't run for Congress since 2002, 22 years ago)

Later in his remarks, Biden said, "we cut the deficit and we added more to the national debt than any president in his term in all of history, than under Donald Trump."

At another point, Biden mistakenly referred to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots as taking place on "July 6th," and then corrected himself.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 900c&ei=62

But yeah, I can't wait for (well moderated) face to face debates to dispel this nonsense.

Shoot, I guess it couldn’t last. That is really sad how disoriented he can become.

But at least SNL slayed the Britt republican response last night
https://x.com/mattxiv/status/1766815037 ... pMkhpLC7ng

Stream Hawk wrote:Shoot, I guess it couldn’t last. That is really sad how disoriented he can become.

But at least SNL slayed the Britt republican response last night
https://x.com/mattxiv/status/1766815037 ... pMkhpLC7ng

Yeah, and there's other things that Biden does that reinforces the perception of him being a feeble old man. They've had to use stairs with lower risers for him to board Air Force One to help keep him from tripping and he still is always stumbling, once nearly doing a face plant. His handlers have outfitted him in tennis shoes to help keep him from stumbling so much. If it were anyone else in his condition, they wouldn't dare force them to use stairs. They'd have him/her boarding/deboarding planes via a wheelchair ramp, a lift, or a sky bridge. But they need the graphics of a healthy, vibrant POTUS bounding up and down the stairs to and from the tarmac like every other US President and head of state.

There's no doubt that Trump frequently gets basic, simple facts wrong, mixes up the names of people he should know by heart, etc, just as often as Biden does, and if it weren't for the fact that he's going up against Sleepy Joe, it would be a lot bigger issue than it is. But Biden's age is a huge problem for this campaign, and they're sitting on a ticking time bomb. Perish the thought, but there's a good chance that something really serious may happen in the coming months, like his falling and breaking a hip. Presidential campaigns are a grueling undertaking for a person half his age, and with the prospect of another close election, there's going to be a lot of pressure for him to campaign hard.

It’s something I sincerely don’t like watching. Seeing an old man go down isn’t something I enjoy nor revel in. The man should be finding some peace and joy in his twilight years, not dealing with our awful political landscape and in the top spot no less. Maybe he’s been in it so long he can’t imagine hanging it up.

MackStrongIsMyHero wrote:It’s something I sincerely don’t like watching. Seeing an old man go down isn’t something I enjoy nor revel in. The man should be finding some peace and joy in his twilight years, not dealing with our awful political landscape and in the top spot no less. Maybe he’s been in it so long he can’t imagine hanging it up.

Agreed. I've had to watch my mother and now my best friend, who turns 86 next month, slowly drift away. My wife worked in a nursing home for 40 years, had to work with folks that couldn't even find their way to the right room. Imagine going back to your room and finding a stranger sleeping in your bed. And at 69 years old, I'm not that far away from a similar fate. Seeing Biden struggle is frightening.

The problem for the Dems is that as much as they'd like to find a younger candidate to pick up the torch, they don't have anyone that has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Trump in the general election. Kamala Harris is a part of an administration that is hugely unpopular. RFK Jr. has the name, but he's a confirmed lunatic. Even his own family disowned him, scolded him for evoking is famous uncle's name. Bernie Sanders is older than Sleepy Joe.

Biden is making the ultimate sacrifice, someone that those of us who oppose Donald Trump should be eternally grateful to. It's a triumph of the human spirit that he's even running again.

Trump spent his time tweeting about the Oscars because that is what modern Republicans want their presidential candidate spending their time doing. Tweeting about how unfair Hollywood is and how much he cares about that.

Of course, Marjorie Taylor-Green talking about Jewish space lasers greatly appeals to some segment of the Republican base that keeps voting for her and she loves being one of Trump's strongest stooge supporters.

We have a real sane Republican Party right now.

Just real sane politics right now. Makes you feel great while the world is in the state it is and could use some sane, lucid leadership from America and we're voting for crazy tweeting billionaires and forcing 82 year old men to come out of retirement to fight crazy. My goodness. This is not a period of history I want to read much about.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Trump spent his time tweeting about the Oscars because that is what modern Republicans want their presidential candidate spending their time doing. Tweeting about how unfair Hollywood is and how much he cares about that.

Of course, Marjorie Taylor-Green talking about Jewish space lasers greatly appeals to some segment of the Republican base that keeps voting for her and she loves being one of Trump's strongest stooge supporters.

We have a real sane Republican Party right now.

Just real sane politics right now. Makes you feel great while the world is in the state it is and could use some sane, lucid leadership from America and we're voting for crazy tweeting billionaires and forcing 82 year old men to come out of retirement to fight crazy. My goodness. This is not a period of history I want to read much about.

There's no doubt that the Republicans lead the Democrats in moon bats, but they hardly have the corner on the market. RFK Jr., for example, believes that Covid was targeted towards whites and blacks and that most Chinese and Jews are immune to it, that mass shootings are linked to prescription drugs, and that the 2004 election was stolen. But, of course, the media doesn't want to put him on the front page like they do MTG.

You're preaching to the choir in your last paragraph. How in the hell some of these lunatics can get so many people to vote for them is beyond my comprehension. My only answer is general stupidity and the social media that enables them.

RiverDog wrote:There's no doubt that the Republicans lead the Democrats in moon bats, but they hardly have the corner on the market. RFK Jr., for example, believes that Covid was targeted towards whites and blacks and that most Chinese and Jews are immune to it, that mass shootings are linked to prescription drugs, and that the 2004 election was stolen. But, of course, the media doesn't want to put him on the front page like they do MTG.

I'm well aware of the Democrat looney. You're listing the tip of the iceberg as I think they have an equivalent level of moonbats if not more. The Democrats have been moonbats for a while now, but now the Republicans have just said "screw it, we're going to go to crazy town too."

The transgender positions with prepubescent children in the Democratic Party is absolutely looney. Not to mention wanting to completely restructure what we know of what it means to be a woman. Then watching young women have to compete against men "identifying" as women while still having all the advantages of men is criminal in my opinion and Democrats supporting this are really punishing young women with complete disregard for the physical reality of the situation in the interest of pushing their ideology. They claim to be the party interested in protecting women and now young women have to deal with men identifying as women entering their sports. This has no effect on men because a female identifying as a male can't compete against men. Why is that, Riverdog? Why can a man identifying as a woman completely destroy women in athletic competition, but the reverse is not true? Shouldn't that be a clue that this is not a great idea.

The critical race theory pseudoscience is crazy making it seem like every white man is somehow hard-wired to be a racist regardless of where or how they were raised or what their ancestry was or even if they were here during the slavery period as though every white person in the nation was somehow raised during the pre-Civil War or even segregation period, when that is very, very far from the truth. But intersectionality tells you that you are programmed a certain way due to your identity and other complete pseudoscientific rubbish that is studied in universities as "real' science.

The lack of belief in normal market operations in regards to minimum wage or inflation making it seem like corporations collude to set prices just to screw people rather than as a part of their business plan when even a basic understanding of economics shows clearly that increasing the minimum wage is going to get passed on to the consumer setting a new normal at a higher price level as the same money competes for the same goods and services driving up the price. So inflation will occur if you increase the cost of the inputs such as labor or commodities with taxes and higher minimum wages driving up prices for consumers.

Yet the Democratic Party paints itself as the "educated" party.

The entire reason so many Republicans are willing to vote for a guy like Trump is because of how looney the Democratic Party has become. The current Republican Party is a reaction to the insanity of the Democratic Party because Democrats have taken so many issues so far into the extreme that this is causing Republicans to support any candidate that will push back hard against this.

Democrats used to working class union Democrats who wanted more workers rights and better economics for workers. People who wanted to push back against racism and sexism and discrimination against homosexuality. Stuff I could understand and supported. But because even Republicans were onboard with a more equal and accepting society, the Democrats had to take it a new level of looney giving voice to their true extreme parts of these issues to differentiate themselves from the opposing Party because the Democrats and Republicans started to look too much alike.

So they both went nuclear to keep themselves differentiated and keep the fight up for power. Now middle of the road Democrats and Republicans got nowhere to go but to vote for looney to fight the opposing looney while the political media rake in the advertising dollars pushing this trash.

This is one of the downsides of a ratings and profit driven media. You can't keep people divided if they start to agree on too much, so you gotta take it to crazier and crazier places once the public starts to agree on certain issues that no longer create the same division they used to.