Hyper Partisanship Quotes
“Republicans” then referred to strong opponents of not only monarchy, but opposed a strong Presidency and federal government. The Federalists who supported John Adams for reelection to a 2nd term, were trounced so badly that it was the end of the Federalist Party. Their attacks on Jefferson had been particularly vicious with the hyperpartisanship as bad as in the early years of the 21st century. Jefferson tried to unify the nation with this quotation. It helped but there was still much bitterness.
His Republican Party had filibustered more bills in the Senate then had been done previously in all of the Senate History together. Congress passed fewer bills in his first two years than any other Congress in history.
After Roosevelt, most eras of American politics more or less followed the pattern Roosevelt described herein as a “calamity”, with the anger becoming more or less intense. Jefferson thought that these were natural divisions of politics in all societies--{604810}. The thing that masked this for years was race and slavery. In Lincoln’s time there were liberals and conservatives in both parties if race were ignored. In Theodore Roosevelt’s era, he, Taft and others were generally liberal reformers, while a large number of Republicans were conservative supporters of the status quo. Some democrats were radical reformers like William Jennings Bryan while others were arch conservatives. Until 1964 and the Civil Rights Act there were many conservatives in the Democratic Party, but almost all switched to the Republican Party in anger. The Republican conservatives tended to drive the Republican liberals out of the party and for the last part of the 20th century Roosevelt’s “calamity” well described the American political scene, and the anger increased carrying partisan bitterness into the 21st century.
The Congress was in a hyper-partisan gridelock and was unable to pass most legislation.
This quotation is very important in that Wood was one of the great political historians of early America and his judgment about the hyperpartisanship of 2012 had reached such extremes that our greatest founding fathers could not have survived in that arena.
After 34 years of serving as one of the most effective Senators, he had just been defeated in his primary election by a hyper partisan Republican conservative extremist who attacked Lugar for his comity and bipartisanship.
After the Dutch Revolution, there were many factions—all against the others in a hyperpartisanship that made constructive politics almost impossible.
The Inspector General of the Justice Department and a Congressional committee found his actions illegal. Schlozman, a Republican Assistant Attorney General, had violated the Civil Service Reform Act by hiring attorneys on the basis of their political affiliation and later made false statements in his sworn testimony to Congress about his hiring decisions. He wanted people who he could count on to follow his lead and not prevent Southern States from changing their election laws and thus be able to discriminate against Blacks in voting, as was required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This quotation is often cited by Civil Service supporters to show what can happen when a political appointee can fire government employees and replace them with people who will agree with him on matters of political ideology.
This was a particularly heinous insult. In this campaign, some Republicans began claiming that President Obama was not a legitimate President because he was not born in America as the Constitution requires. Despite the fact that the State of Hawaii validated his birth certificate and the local newspapers carried announcements of his birth, many continued to make the accusation along with the parallel accusation that he was a Muslim and not a Christian despite his Church Membership all of his adult life. For many the purpose was to delegitimize Obama and they added the claim that he was anti American. So when Sununu, a major party leader said this the implication was particularly egregious. Sununu, to his credit, did apologize for the language he used and the implication thereof, but the quote is an excellent example of what has happened when campaigns get hyper-partisan. Even senior, veteran politicians get carried away and say things they regret. The 2012 was a particularly hyper-partisan campaign.
The Vice President had quoted Ronald Reagan’s famous inaugural address statement {630713}. Once Quayle became the number two man in the government, he was asked if he were part of the problem which elicited this famous response.
The historian was comparing Obama to other historical presidents who either had a majority of both Houses of Congress or had an opposition party that was generally quite cooperative and willing to compromise for the sake of running the country smoothly. At this point in time there was a Tea Party wing of the Republican that was particularly negative and obstructionist. They tended to threaten and intimidate the main stream Republicans who used the filibuster to block legislation the majority of Senators had voted for more times than all the other Congresses in American history. And that was only in Obamas first 6 years.
The two young girls, 16 and 13, were in the background of the White House ritual Pardoning of a Turkey for Thanksgiving. Lauten, one of the extremist right wing hyper partisans of the day became the first political figure to attack the children who had been prior to that “out of bounds” even for the Tea Party Partisans. This attack was so petty and cruel that she was forced to resign the next day. However, many of the rabid Republicans reading the attack agreed showing how far the anti-Obama feeling had spread amongst some on the extreme right. Many other rightists condemned the attack as both immoral for attacking young children who really had no part in politics and incorrect and petty in her criticism. It was a time of hyper partisanship where any attack was a good attack, independent of whether or not it was true or justified.
