It's about time you saw the error of your ways, you laggard.

👂

Do you feel like ranked-choice voting improves things?

The only difference in politicians is who owns them. None of them is going to give you what you want.
The best you can do is vote for the one who will, as near as you can determine, do the least damage to the community.
If you really want to do good get involved at the local level, get vocal about who gets backing for dog catcher.
George Washington had a great idea for the politicians who come to DC.  Don't pay them. Public office is a public service. 

if you don't pay politicians, only the independently wealthy can afford to be politicians. that seems like a bad call to me.

erika wrote:

if you don't pay politicians, only the independently wealthy can afford to be politicians. that seems like a bad call to me.

Some Congressmen actually live in their Congressional offices because they cannot afford a house or apartment in Washington DC.   I believe that number is just under ten.
 

Limey wrote:

... then I hope we could crack open a beer and discuss our differences, try to understand each other’s point of view even if we disagree.

Which is how Congress worked before so many disinformation sources (ie Fox News, Drudge Report, etc) were regarded as news.  Back then, Republican and Democrat Congressman's families would even spend Christmas together.  Back then, people worked for the team.  A "Me-Me-Me" mentality, inspired by disinformation, was not paramount.

This disinformation became obvious during a Mission Accomplished war. UT posted three monkeys, with the faces of the three network anchormen.  Showing them as deaf, dumb, and blind.  So many people do not bother to  confirm their reports.  I was surprised to learn how many so easily drink the Kool-Aid.

How is that done?  Target the emotional child.  Contempt for Covid masks demonstrates so many ordered emotionally what to believe.  They even claim, like children, that masks violate their Constitutional rights.  Sources that promote "hate as if news" are prevalent.  Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are classic examples of what changed.

So many now make conclusions only from 140 character tweets.  Those target people who wait to be ordered what to believe.  Rather than first learn paragraphs and pages of facts before making a decision.

Trump is popular because he constantly insults others - as Hitler and Mussolini also did.  He never states facts.  He is expert at avoiding challenging questions.  His response to hard questions is, well, what now inspires murder threats on Leslie Stahl for last Sunday's 60 Minute interview?  She kept trying to get him to answer questions by denying and by avoiding his routine disinformation and disparaging remarks.

At the highest levels of government are dividers - not uniters.  Contempt for Covid masks and praising parades of AK-47s in public are demonstrations of hate - that is encouraged at the highest levels of government.  For the same reason that KKK rallies were so popular.  Trump is clearly defined by his so many fired subordinates as "the president to be of limited cognitive ability, and of generally dubious character."  Resulting animosity makes him popular among many who worship a school yard bully.  That is what has changed.

Same were the days of Joseph McCarthy who also used hate and disinformation to become popular.  Since most do not learn of that history (and from it), then we are doomed to repeat those lessons.

We could have learned from Mission Accomplished.  Outright and intentional lies designed to create hate and inspire a war of no purpose.  But most, who advocated the death of 5000 American servicemen for no purpose, even refuse to learn how easily they were manipulated by hate and lies.  They do not even apologize for letting disinformation make them believe lies.  Disinformation is that widespread.

We were only ten minutes from unjustified war.  Had it happened, how many today would be blaming Iran for it?  That much disinformation has become common.  So many think like children.  Their emotions (not facts) prove it must be true.

Nixon literally had to resign.  And still so many believed he 'was not a crook'.  Disinformation was not so widespread then.

They could not find even one engineer that said it was safe to launch Challenger.  And still so many call it an accident.

In such environments, inspired by both hate and disinformation at the highest levels of government, confrontation rather than teamwork is inevitable.  They even threatened Leslie Stahl's life.