Excessive partisanship warps brains.

[cali]

It disables critical thinking. It blinds those afflicted by it.

Happy Independence (from THAT) Day.

[MNBrewer]

1. Theoretically, parties exist to serve their voters

not the other way around. But you would never know that by reading much of DU.

[Fuddnik]

14. Seems like they're trying to drive away their voters.

People have concerns they want addressed, and are mocked and ridiculed for trying to bring up certain subjects.

[treestar]

19. How do you figure that?

parties exist to make political alliances - each and every person cannot have their way, so people band together to get an approximation of what they want by nominating candidates who win. Anyone can be part of that. One can't stand aside from the party while it "serves" you. If you stay out, you won't affect that party much.

[Fuddnik]

21. You just proved what I said.

[treestar]

24. What you just said is not proved until

The Democratic party has few or no members and some other party has more members than the Democratic Party has.

[pampango]

23. Well said, treestar. n/t

[MNBrewer]

30. I stand with it when it serves me and apart from it when it does not

[carolinayellowdog]

2. Independent of Imperialism

That's what 1776 was about, but now the empire is international capitalism

[Romulus Quirinus]

3. I'm inclined to think there's a feedback loop there.

Partisanship enables group membership. Being in the in-group activates our reward circuit. One of the properties of group dynamics is how we tighten ties to our group by "othering" outsiders, thus making group membership more valuable.

And on and on it goes.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Thomas Jefferson

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

[senseandsensibility]

18. Great quote.

I really like it and think it's appropriate for what we're experiencing now.

[Progressive dog]

29. It's a great quote from a founder of the democratic party

who groomed Madison and Monroe to follow him. Even he found out that he needed allies to actually accomplish stuff.

[Lisa D]

5. Excessive "anything" can be detrimental

Excessive love, hate, food, drugs, alcohol, television, napping, DU posting. The list can go on forever.

[Rex]

6. Ain't that the truth!

It is the reason why some here always have to blow smoke up our asses 24/7. Their own denial is more important then everyone else's reality.

[ProSense]

7. Really?

"Excessive partisanship warps brains. It disables critical thinking. It blinds those afflicted by it. "

You're attributing that to "excessive partisanship"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=152034&sub=trans

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023135750#post24

[cali]

10. do you think I'm talking about you?

[ProSense]

11. Oh,

"do you think I'm talking about you?

...maybe you're projecting?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023169023#post23

[kentuck]

8. Absolutely true.

These times are reminiscent of the partisanship during the Nixon years.

[leftstreet]

9. Cali 2016! She's dreamy!

DURec

[Fuddnik]

12. Yeppers!

[pampango]

13. Thinking that republicans have many right answers may be a sign of a previously warped brain.

Granted that republicans may occasionally be "right" (though always for the wrong reason), a certain amount of partisanship is good for the brain.

[Fuddnik]

16. Thats why they formed the DLC, or the New Democrat Coalition and the Third Way.

Because Republicans have such fantastical ideas. So, they adopted them and called it triangulation.

I call it a disgrace.

[pampango]

22. It did lessen "excessive partisanship" through triangulation.

I not sure that is where the OP is going with the warning about "excessive partisanship" but triangulation is sure one way of dealing with it.

[OilemFirchen]

15. I suspect most here are Democrats.

Per their self-identified membership they are, by definition, partisans.

However, the strongest allegiance to groupthink here is among the Purity Patrol. There is virtually no divergence of opinion. Those who've not signed on to the Perfect Progressive Platform are the least "partisan" - presuming that you mean committed to rigid principles.

[Cooley Hurd]

17. Ironic post (per the poster) of the week.

[treestar]

20. Exactly and it's groupthink for total negativity

I criticized, therefore I am right! No questioning of the validity of criticism is allowed.

Everyone elected freely is corrupt, not to be believed.

We have no solutions for this. We may find an occasional hero who will do what we want in lockstep, never a person in office or who could get the office of President (the one through which we get all we want).

[NOVA_Dem]

32. And what do you call those who abandon their beliefs strictly based on who's in the Whitehouse?

I'm talking about posters who totally flip flop on an issue just b/c our guy is doing it? We can go into the DU archives and verify that they held a totally contradictory opinion as recently as the last administration?

[struggle4progress]

25. An analysis based on established facts gets us further than imagining facts to support an analysis

[pampango]

27. "An analysis based on established facts ..." = liberal/Democratic policy-making.

"... imagining facts to support an analysis" is the epitome of the republican tactic of choosing a policy they want and "imagining facts to support analysis" that supports that policy choice.

Thanks for the post, struggle4progress. Bookmarked.

[HooptieWagon]

26. Well played, Cali!

[SidDithers]

28. So does hair-on-fire perpetual outrage...nt

Sid

[longship]

31. I have no problem with partisanship, per se.

I have a huge problem with ideologies which calcify in the mind and allow no rational arguments or disagreements.

The Republican Party is just such an animal. Extremist and religious ideology has taken over a major political party in the USA and this is the result.

A gay legislator in PA is shut up because God declares it.

The multiple bills in state legislatures harming women's health care.

Attempts to impede minorities from voting.

And. And. And. And. And.

The religious right owns the Republican Party infrastructure. Their agenda is now the Republican agenda because to disagree with it is to disagree with GOD! That's much of the reason why no compromise, and all the filibusters and all the party line votes.

Christopher Hitchens said, religion poisons everything. And certainly it is poisoning this nation's politics.

Wake up sheeple!!