• cowpowered
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    1 year ago

    Once upon a time, it seemed like being an advocate for their constituents and a competent administrator of the country as a whole got politicians reelected. Maybe I have rose-tinted history glasses tho…

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      There’s always been mud slinging and dirty politics. You can learn more about American mudslinging here. WWII changed American politics a lot. We had just come through the depression and the war and now America was a superpower. A lot of the politicians were veterans who respected each other because many of them served in some capacity. They also had a common enemy in the USSR. That spirit of comity has been steadily eroding and without an external enemy I think too many Americans see their political opposition as the enemy now.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We do still have external enemies, the only difference is that they go beyond simply having nukes trained at us, now they fund our political campaigns too.

          • dhork@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Well. Yeah, during the Cold War the other side was a bunch of godless Communists.

            Now the other side is a hyper-capitalist oligarchy, and a good chunk of our politicians openly embrace that. The Republican party is just a bunch of Oligarchs-in-training.