"Other than the POTUS" seems to brazenly ignore the significance. For example, it would be absurd to ask, 'When Trump took office, what changed from Obama other than the POTUS'?

When Obama took office, the new POTUS' policies aligned to a significant degree with the anti-war protestors. Obama had opposed the Iraq war from the start and promised to withdraw, which he did (though the withdrawal was also required by the agreement Bush made with Iraq). Obama also wanted out of Afghanistan and, after a policy review, set a timeline for it (a criticized decision that was later changed).

> both sides are wrong

This is true "political correctness" (a term that I think is almost always misused). The odds of both sides begin equivalent seem slim; it's not at all unlikely that of two parties, one would be significantly worse than the other. It's sort of like looking at two software programs and saying 'both have bugs'; sure, but that's meaningless - it's not at all surprising when one is much superior to the other.

But people like to be even-handed, out of some misguided (IMHO) view of fairness or not wanting to offend. But the stakes are too high; you wouldn't say that if you were choosing between airplane autopilot programs. In this case, if you make the worse choice then it can result in catastrophic climate change, nuclear proliferation, war, mass oppression, the undermining of democracy and liberty, and more.

I do not believe there's a perfect equivalence. Lately the Republicans have been more enthusiastic about denying reality. But there's certainly a sense in which people view politics like a football game and just mindlessly root for their side.

We won't be rid of Trump and his ilk until we stop caring about parties and start caring about ideas.

IME, The regular anti-war protestors continued the same recurring protests at the same locations during Obama's term that they had been carrying out under Bush (the same ones are, in many cases, still carrying them out under Trump.)

Media focus may have changed, but that's about alignment of the facts with pre-conceived media narratives, not the underlying reality.

But... that's a bipartisan thing, not a Democratic thing: no Republican Administration (which could do this alone, as an executive action) or Republican majority Congress has proposed ending registration since Carter reopened it as an executive action to prepare for potential war in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In fact, bipartisan legislation creating a committee to consider expanding the uses of the draft was passed in 2016.

> war on drugs

Again, not a Democratic policy.

> DARE program

Not a Democratic policy (and it works quite well to improve it's targets opinions of law enforcement; it doesn't do anything about drug abuse.)

> three strikes (voted in CA, a heavy democratic state)

About half of states and the federal government have three strikes laws, and they are not more supported by Democrats than Republicans.

I recall many democrats complaining about not closing Guantanamo, or leaving Iraq faster. I don't recall any saying that it should continue and using going to war as a tool for pseudo-patriotic posturing.

>... Well the unemployment numbers don't include the long term unemployed who would still like a job, etc so I would assume everyone should look beyond the simple number reported in the press.

I am not talking about the subtlety of the different measures of unemployment and whether we should quote the U6 or U3 numbers when we speak about unemployment. I am talking about large parts of the Republican Party calling all unemployment data fake, rigged, designed to help Obama and all of the other demonstrably false descriptions used to support their agenda. If you want me to dig up some news articles I will, but it was basically how republicans said hello for the last two years of Obama's administration.

>... Name an rejection of scientific consensus like Global Warming

Democrats don't reject that it is scientifically possible to genetically modify food, or even that any assertion that is is totally safe is false. Rather, there are three main arguments against GMO: 1. The risk posed to humans is still uncertain and poses an outsized risk, 2. Allowing a company to patent food, along with monopoly rights, is a dangerous social policy, especially when farmers are being sued out of business by GMO crop contamination (even when they take great pains not to use GMO seed), 3. Consumers should at least be notified about the presence of GMO in food so they can make an informed choice.

Democrats are not saying nuclear fission is fake, but the severity of an accident makes even a very low risk of an accident a very asymmetric harm that should be weighed carefully. Further, we don't have a legitimate storage facility for nuclear waste.

I don't see how these two issues represent a "rejection of the science".

>...No economist has ever proposed a policy called "trickle down economics". The pejorative is simply used by people to attack someone else's economic polices. Using a perjorative is simply an attempt to poison the well and prevent discussion. In terms of policies that don't work. but still get support... A couple that come to mind:

- Umm President Bush gave a speech describing his supply side policies as trickle down...that is not me being pejorative, that is, and has been, the common descriptive phrase first suggested by a republican president. It has become pejorative because the policy has never delivered the outcomes it predicted and seems to also be casually linked to a large increase in income inequality. You can question the causal relationship, but when a policy is predicted to have a certain outcome, and seems to have a different, and seemingly negative outcome, it seems expected that it would get a bad popular opinion.

>... - wasting money to require registration for the draft - war on drugs - DARE program - three strikes (voted in CA, a heavy democratic state)

All of these are republican policies, I asked for one example of a zombie policy that democrats keep pushing in the face of overwhelming factual evidence that such policy doesn't work.

anti-communistic fervor was, and is, a massive boondoggle.