I haven't researched the Federal and appellate judges, but those might be fine for now.

That's not going to go over well with the normal everyday conservatives, especially after the election. The healing isn't going to happen unless there are some apologies given to everyday Americans for how they have been treated.

I think that it's kind of like salary negotiations... if either side feels too good or too bad, it was probably a bad deal. Both sides should feel equal parts satisfaction and disappointment.

Liberals would want to tip the scales and conservatives will resent the deck not being quite as stacked.

For example, I'm not a Trump fan but my 85-year old grandmother is and had a Trump sticker on her car and had thousands of dollars worth of damage done to it. She was stranded at a grocery store by her self for hours until someone could come pick her up and had to borrow money from her kids to pay the deductable to have it fixed. These things have been a lot more common than has been reported and I'm telling you, it is going to take more than a shady election and calls for unity (while still being slandered) for that divide to be fixed after so many things like this have happened.

I get it... What happened to your mother was inexcusable.

There is no justification for that and I don't know a single person on either side of the political spectrum that would think otherwise.

You know, except the people who did it.

Well... I don't know them.

sorry, read "know" as "think"

I live in Orange County, CA in a very red part of the state. I have a somewhat unique perspective. Around here, folks have figured out how to coexist - more or less.

Way more than less.

To be fair.

I'm not even a Trumper and I damn sure not going to unify with a party that isn't going to apologize for excusing and encouraging that kind of behavior against normal citizens. I'm not angry with you. I just feel like people don't understand why the healing and unity is going to take more than "hey, we won, now lets be friends." That being said, I know a lot of moderates who are Democrats who I will always do my best to treat with respect as long as that respect is mutual. I don't want to judge all Democrats by the bad actors but someone has to start apologizing and making these things right. Talking down to people and telling them they are racist after they have been assaulted and had property destroyed is just going to anger them. Just saying. Unity and healing isn't going to happen for most of America until mutual respect for each side is restored and I don't see that happening soon. I'm honestly just hoping it doesn't get worse at this point.

Again, just trying to be honest with how I see things.

I hope more parts of the country can learn to live like you have. We get along pretty well here in Nebraska. Most of my family lives in Colorado and they have had a lot more problems between people in the two parties.

At this point, I'm more inclined towards intransigence than healing. Conservatism has simply become progressivism driving the speed limit, and that's a road I'd prefer to never travel down.

I think that social media has done our country a disservice, but I think it might go back to... well... the Jerry Springer show. It started to take off about the time that Rush Limbaugh was hitting his stride. I know it sounds weird, but before Springer, a particular segment of society that he exploited had been fairly hidden from the mainstream. And people became fascinated. Soon, content started focusing on the oddities because they were interesting. Then came "reality TV" and abhorrent behavior became the example that people emulated. It's come a long way since Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons. In any case, everything provocative is now amplified. Watching it on TV this summer, Portland looked like a war zone. Having lived there and still having family there, it was only one block. Granted, it was horrible, but it was the same 50 or so people allowed to maintain the stupidity and it got amplified, as usual. The reality is that 90%+ of liberals were just as appalled.

But to hear it on conservative media, all liberals were in lock step. It's not true.

All conscientious Liberals and all conscientious Conservatives probably can agree on 90% of the most important things. I think we need to figure out how to focus on that 90% for a while..

I agree. There is a great diversity of opinions in the Democratic party and with liberals. I think the issue is the farthest left appear to be driving the agenda. It seems to me that Trump was a symptom of that rather the type of person or could generate a following without a significant external force. Also, there has been a very significant cultural divide between rural areas and urban areas. Each is very ignorant of the challenges the other faces and the unique legal considerations that each environment needs. I grew up in a small ranching town and live in a bigger midwestern city. Most people live their whole lives in one environment and it is handicapping our ability to communicate about important things.

Ever hear of the pistachio paradox? My 4 favorite ice cream flavors are chocolate, blackberry, coffee, and pistachio. I choose chocolate 80%, blackberry 15%, coffee 4%, and pistachio 1%. That's basically picking pistachio every 2 years.

Liberals dislike rioting, but they chose anti-rioting like I choose pistachio.

That becomes a problem when your wife's preferences are exactly opposite of your own and you only have enough money to buy one pint of ice cream.

I think that is not entirely accurate... I think that a minute percentage of liberals will ever participate in a riot. There are knuckleheads that get out of hand, but liberals don't have a monopoly on that. There is abhorrent behavior on both sides.

I'm specifically talking about choosing candidates who will enforce law and quell riots. That's the pistachio flavor. They'll choose an anti 2A candiate over a law and order one all but 1% of the time.

But only from a miniscule percentage. I would be willing to bet that it is less than 1% on each side.

"Conservatism has simply become progressivism driving the speed limit, and that's a road I'd prefer to never travel down." ... I like that line.

I don't know... I think both sides have done a horrible job choosing its leaders.

All the more reason to reduce the leaders scope and let local leaders handle things.

Do you believe most American's have that granular of choice now? It almost seems like you can't get away from chosing a party platform at this point, so if you are Democrat you will vote for anti-2A and if you are Republican you will vote for a pro-2A candidate whether you like it or not.

That is why I lean more libertarian and states rights than anything else. The high up the chain you push the decision making the worse outcome and more people you will disenfranchise.

I think one way that the founding fathers intended to avoid this issues was the size of the House of Representatives. They debated making it 1 representative per 30K or 1 per 40K and even assuming that the population would grow to be in the hundreds of millions, they decided on 1 in 30K. In that ratio, we should have more than 10K reps. With Internet technology, we could do that now.

I think they sh#t the bed on the Senate, though. CA having only 2 Senators sucks for us.

I don't see more democracy as solving any of these issues.

Looking forward to our coming hashpower overlords taking over decision making.

The other was the electoral college, which the most progressive Democrats want to abolish. I would probably push back on the 90% in common idea the more I think about it. Rural life and city life are very different. I would estimate maybe 40% of the same issues between city and rural and 90%+ within each.

It has to do with reducing the influence of money on our politics. We have a system where a 1/3 of reps will always vote left, 1/3 will vote right, and 1/3 can be bought. Multinational corporations are able to buy that influence for practically nothing.

the purchased 1/3 only can be bought along indifference curves

When I say 90%, I'm not talking about only politics. We all want to provide a safe, comfortable place to raise our kids, to put food on the table, make sure they are erll educated and afforded all the opportunities they need to be successful. Recognize the commonality that is the shared human experience.

None of that translates to knowing the polices that would even create that, nor knowing who to even vote for in order to implement it.

No, but if we can't figure out how to get to a point of mutual respect, how do we move forward. What you have been expressing is that you feel that liberals don't share any of your values. You think that they don't respect anything about your values. Mutual respect comes from recognizing ourselves in others. It's a starting point.