Are politics today more bitter then they were in the past?
This is a common topic of discussion and there is quite a bit of consensus that they are and we are not living up to the ideals of the founding fathers.
Not sure why these people haven't mastered history but our country and most countries have lived with bitter partisan divides since the beginning.
We had such a fear of strong central Government that we tried an entirely different system that failed called the Articles of Confederation that left the States essentially independent but created a confederation. This left a sort of central Government too weak to do much at all and we replaced it with the constitution. If nothing else it points out that the founders were not perfect.
There was significant animosity between the two parties and within the parties. Aaron Burr ,the vice presidential candidate almost stole an election when it ended in a tie.
Expansion and slavery were major issues until we have a Civil War that sort of resolved one of them, but Reconstruction, the KKK and Jim Crow would argue it wasn't the best resolution.
Deep conflicts continued with issue we hardly remember today such as temperance and women's right to vote.
We had the anti-monopolistic period and the anti-immigration period.
It never really ended although it might be true that we saw a nation pretty united during the two world wars, although politics never ended.
More recently we saw Civil Rights, Feminism, Abortion, and many other controversial issues.
So is it worse today or just us complaining more?
We grew and prospered the whole time despite these differences and I suspect it will continue.
We are a contentious bunch.
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