This forum has mostly Americans. There is a recent meme in American politics that says that someone arguing that both sides are the same is a bad thing. Because they're actually arguing in favor of one of the sides in some hidden manner, or because not picking sides only supports a bad status quo, or something like that. Anyway, it's bad and you got to downvote it.
At least in terms of my above comment, the things that Republicans believe, and the things that Democrats believe, are both true.
But I wouldn't say that they are both the same. That was true before 2016, but 2020 is a Very Different World.
Prior to 2016, Americans had two parties that largely colluded with each other to maintain power. This is why they wrestled control of the debates away from the League of Women Voters in the late 80s[1], why third parties disappeared out of the debates shortly thereafter, and why Obama, whom I voted for, governed almost identically to Bush, whom I didn't.
Let's call this duopoly the Establishment.
2016 was a brick through both Establishment windows. Bernie from the Left, and Trump from the Right. Bernie got shut down and bought off, but the Republicans, being the official party of milquetoast whining, had no tools to stop Trump.
Bernie would have stomped Trump in 2016, by the way.
Now, the Democrats are playing the same tune they were in 2016, just cranked up to 11. They had some solid candidates -- I still really like Tulsi -- but either character-assassinated (Tulsi) or ignored (Yang) the hell out of them in favor of Biden.
This hasn't done the Democrats any favors. They've been aggressively attacking anybody identified as a heretic, meaning anybody that isn't a hard-line loyalist. I'm not sure that translates to Trump votes, but I don't think it translates to Biden ones, either.
Hence, the hostility.
The Republicans are in a weird space. The Establishment faction is in total disarray, and the Trump faction is struggling with a civil service that is in large part actively hostile. Washington long-haulers are playing it safe, as if Trump is out come January, they go up against the wall, quite possibly in the literal sense.
No idea how things will play out, but the real worry is what happens afterwards.
Democrats will not accept a Trump victory. Republicans will not accept a Biden victory.
This is a bad place to be, folks. Never thought I would see things like this in my lifetime, but that's where we are.
