Why do people assume if your not a Democrat your a Republican and vise versa?

There's a reason why politics are so partisan today. The basic problem, the problem behind all the other problems, is that we've allowed money to become way to important in our electoral politics. In an open election, that is, one where no incumbent is running for re-election, the candidate who spends the most money wins about 95% of the time, 19 times out of 20.

So our elections are really nothing more than fundraising contests. Both parties desperately need tons of cash to run their campaigns, and they both get the money from the same sources. So you can't realistically expect their true agendas to be all that different.

Instead, like any two nearly identical products in a marketplace, they spend all their time and money trying to differentiate themselves from one another. That's partisanship. Partisanship was on the way out in the US after WWII, from the late 40s to the mid 70s.

More and more people were registering as independent, 'voting for the man, not the party'. It was the Republicans who brought back bitter partisanship, to get Ronald Reagan elected president. It's only gotten worse since then.

Today the Republicans are totally out of ideas. Reaganism has been a total flop for 30 years, it's just mushroomed the national debt and concentrated wealth more and more. Today the Republicans see that cooperating with Obama and the Democrats is not in their best interests.

Anything positive that's achieved through bipartisan cooperation, they know Obama gets most of the credit. So their agenda is very simple--oppose anything Obama or the Democrats propose. They might do the same things when they get into power, but then THEY get the credit.

The Democrats aren't that much different. Not really that much better. But at least they want to compromise.

They're willing to accept half a loaf. During the phoney debt limit crisis, Obama even signaled a willingness to put SS and Medicare on the table, a move he knew would cost him support in his own party. But the Republicans had painted themselves into a corner.

They'd angered their base so much that just about ANY deal they made with the Democrats would be seen as capitulation. So Obama got wise and began using the Republicans' obstreperousness against them. He came out with some very popular ideas--ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans, keeping the payroll tax cuts for working people, and spending stimulus money to keep police and firefighters on the job.

These moves have like an 85% popularity among US voters but the Republicans outsmarted themselves by voting against them, The Democrats are not defeating the Republicans, the Republicans are defeating themselves!

You know what, it is better that there is back and forth fighting while nothing gets done, at least they won't be making things worse, which you know they would.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.