Fair enough, I don't think I phrased my post above quite as well as I should have. Obama's ascent polarized people according to their political beliefs; and the determining factor in their political beliefs was race. Tesler documents this change quite well in his book, though he doesn't manage to probe the extent to which racial politics are deeply intertwined with other political issues, most notably class precarity felt by working class white people. Many of the discussions on this board--and the identity of several posters on the board--perfectly capture this precarity.

While Obama was a disappointment, he and the rest of us are suffering from the Southern strategy starting in the sixties.

Maybe he was just bored.

Things have been getting consistently worse for a long time.

That's also a sign of aging.

It feels like just about every section/thread of this board is filled with some racial or political grievance. You can't escape it even if you avoid the politics section. It wasn't always this way. Is this what happens with age? Is there an expiration date for this?

Erza Klein's book "Why We're so Polarized" does a fantastic job of explaining what has led to the state of the country. He explains the history of the political parties over the last 100+ years, the rural vs urban divide, and the psychology of identity politics. I highly recommend it.

For instance they were never taught that Columbus was a slave owner.

There has been a fair amount written about the determining factor being those who felt left out economically.

Race was the narrative pushed by a complicit media that keeps the power structure you mentioned earlier from disintegrating.

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

For instance they were never taught that Columbus was a slave owner.

Technically I was drunk (big surprise) and asked her if she liked a tongue up her ass.

Again, your comprehension needs work.

It feels like just about every section/thread of this board is filled with some racial or political grievance. You can't escape it even if you avoid the politics section. It wasn't always this way. Is this what happens with age? Is there an expiration date for this?

Reagan opened his post convention campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi talking state's rights and you dipshits want to blame Obama?
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Telling.