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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

Seems like, just with many issues in the US, it's become another "The other side is against it, so we're for it!" problem... "Our kids are getting shot up in school, but the Democrats want to ban guns, so we're pro guns, there must be other solutions! Maybe Ivermectin also creates bullet-proof kids!".

The opposition also becomes saboteurs because any wins they give the ruling party means the ruling party gets to look better, and hell no, we can't have that, we have to destroy them!

Funnily enough when lockdowns started, the billions of bailout got bipartisan support. It seems like both sides knew a hungry populace would go for their heads, whatever the label after their name is. EDIT: then again, Dems are a more conscionable bunch (which makes fighting against a win-by-whatever-means-possible bunch hard), they knew people needed the money. The hypocrisy was GOP saying money doesn't grow on trees, until it does...

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> Seems like, just with many issues in the US, it's become another "The other side is against it, so we're for it!" problem...

I'm confused by your comment. Your main thesis is worded as though it applies to all U.S. political groups, but the rest of your post seems specifically anti-Republican.

At the moment I can't think of Democrats sabotaging things that would be good for the American public to benefit themselves politically; care to find examples for me? Then we can put the examples of Republicans doing that on one side of the scale, and the examples of Democrats doing that on the other side, and call them equally bad... ;-)

I could give some examples, but I think this would just devolve into an unproductive partisan fight.

(Which would be ironic, but I don't support either party.)

Democrats could reform specific legal immigration systems, for instance revamping the H1B program, to be less nonsensical. But the incentive is to lump that reform in with other kinds of immigration reform.

Same could be said about taking a more piecemeal and less legally inventive approach to healthcare reform back under the Obama administration. They passed exactly as much as they thought they could squeak through the legislative process. A plan with 2/3 consensus could have been pursued but they decided to burn all the political capital they could instead. Enter Trump shortly later... a "fighter".

Republicans only care about gun rights when Democrats are in office. Same with Democrats about abortion. Neither do anything to reinforce either right when they control a majority of the branches of government.

>Neither do anything to reinforce either right when they control a majority of the branches of government.

Unfortunately "control a majority of the branches of government" isn't enough to get legislation passed. You need control of house, senate, and presidency. The senate is particularly difficult because of filibusterers, so you need 60% votes, not a simple majority.

Read: they aren’t willing to spend the political capital. Which shows how much they truly value the issue. Much easier to bolster the status quo. Bonus: when that issue is under attack, you can rally the troops by saying “see? They’re coming after us!”

Obama said Sandy Hook was the worst day of his presidency, and his biggest regret was not being able to change US gun laws[1], being blocked by congress. He did spend a lot of the Dem's political capital in the first term fighting for better healthcare/Obamacare.

[1] https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/former-p...

You've probably seen it here first hand many times: knee-jerk contrarianism. It will be our undoing.

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