Discontent is high on both sides of the political spectrum.
These are the best of times and the worst of times -- a clash between the tea party and occupy, taxes and spending cuts, the haves and have-nots, religiousocity and reality, poverty and gluttony, big government and small government.
But the warring -- the battle between right and wrong, good and evil -- does not stop there. The battle lines are fluid, constantly moving, and as more lines are being drawn chances of survival decline.
What's caused this huge divide?
With constantly changing lines it's increasingly difficult to sift through the minutiae to determine the causes. But one thing is evident in every case -- the divide is fueled by hypocrisy!
And the hypocrisy is skewed heavily to the right -- allowed to continue unchecked by an unfair media malignancy -- false equivalency.
Rampant hypocrisy is obvious. Less obvious, but equally damaging, is the media's policy of false equivalence! It's the art of making every issue seem like it is being exploited, blocked, spun, or misrepresented equally by both groups.
Democrats are disadvantaged by this UnJournalistic practice. As long as the media portrays democrats as equally culpable the nation will remain hopelessly divided.
And the American people are the one's who lose.
Right-wing hypocrisy is responsible for the ever widening political divide our country is facing as well as the cultural and economic divisions.
It is easy to show that the right is wrong but, it is increasingly difficult to overcome the unchallenged and amplified cacophony of the right-wing machine -- a machine determined to, not only undermine, but drown out the more realistic and responsible messages of others.
Merely yelling louder, a la Andrew Breitbart; or spending millions of dollars, a la the Koch brothers; disrupting Town Hall meetings, a la the Tea Party; or substituting language, a la Frank Luntz, should never be successful at masking the truth. Irrational extremes pushed by political extremists on the right should never be allowed to obscure honest discourse.
Creating fear -- 'death panels' and increased level 'terrorist alerts' -- are examples of the oft used lies perpetrated by an uncaring political party. Perpetrated by the Republicans.
Without honest discourse we become more unstable, making the job of developing and implementing sound domestic, foreign, economic, health, energy, trade, and education policy nearly impossible.
Lying and hypocrisy have become the norm for the right and their godless stretches of the truth are hurting America.
It's obvious that the general welfare of the American people is of no concern to them -- evidenced by their repeated attempts to tear down everything that is good for America: healthcare, financial regulation and protection, worker's rights, and women's rights.
This uncaring attitude also extends to their contentious attacks on human rights, voter rights, immigration, wars, and family values.
Their dogged pursuit of power over well being is destructive, but combined with their rabid thirst for control through misinformation, lies, and hypocrisy our fate becomes apocalyptic.
The most recent examples of their failed stewardship and their lies are the bank crisis and the housing bubble. We had to bail out the big banks and haven't yet corrected the causes of the failure. And housing is still having difficulty finding a bottom or gaining any traction. Unemployment, which began trending negative in January 2008, and the off-shoring of jobs are by-products of Republican governance. They lie about the causes of all four issues.
They talk about the huge deficit and the need to reduce it when they were the ones who created most of it. In the years from Reagan through Bush, Republicans were responsible for $7.5 trillion of the $9.1 trillion we borrowed during those three decades. That's 82% of the deficit attributable to the Republicans and a mere 18% attributable to Clinton. Most of the debt under Obama is the remnant, the ugly aftermath, of the George W. Bush-created Great Recession.
The same hypocrisy applies to Social Security and Medicare. Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House for 12 years -- eight of those with a Republican President -- yet did nothing to protect these programs from the declines they're now screaming about. Now, they lie about the condition of the programs in hopes of privatizing them.
It's this way issue after issue -- create the problem, lie about the causes, lie about the proposals proffered to fix them, and attack the opposition with feckless soundbites.
The Republican Party is a malignancy that has been metastasizing for more than 30 years.
Republican policies, ideologies, and hypocrisy have taken us to the edge of a cliff. Reelecting them would destroy our recovery, ensure our financial failure, and threaten our world dominance.
Do we really want to go backwards after fighting so hard to go forward?
Can we afford to pay for their failures and lies -- again?
Can our children and grandchildren?