I (usually) do not think it intentional; unfortunately, that rarely mitigates the harm. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 09/09/2012 02:45:20 AM
They say all politics is local, but the truth is all politics is PERSONAL, especially in bad times. I found out in my canvassing days that pols can try to terrorize people with rising oceans or the fagenda, but unless its connected to their lives most people are too busy worrying about things directly affecting them to worry about anything that does not. I try to stay calm and objective, but that often makes it hard. The notion liberals hate America is bunk: Most of us and our families live there.
Let me suggest that the GOP is not intentionally trying to do you harm.
My uncle is currently seeking damages against a hospital that nearly killed him, and a few years ago his brother was killed when a semi-driver with a history of tickets and drinking on the job made an illegal turn and literally ran over his stationary vehicle. His daughters brought litigation against the trucking company, which settled for a million dollars that paid off the house in which one of them lived and bought another house for the other one. It was compensation for the roughly million dollars their father would have earned over his next twenty years in a good union job, and for the fact they no longer had a father.
I mention all that because my surviving uncle has been fiercely Republican all his life, and remains so, as does one of his nieces, so they will both head out in a few months and vote for a party whose platform reaffirms its longstanding dedication to ending torts.