There were two developments in politics by 2012 that seem to be unprecendented in my limited knowledge of political history.
A Republican Congress, so dedicated to preventing Obama reelection, blocks all legislation promoting economic recovery. This is a political ploy that will cost the country trillions in delayed recovery and seems unprecedented in scale and brinkmanship. Is this characterization accurate? Is partisan politics so intense as to prefer to significantly hurt the country rather than reach a compromise unprecedented? This seems to be a significant flaw in the republican (representative) form of government.
Politics became personal, with people taking positions so personally as to break up friendships and even families. And the issues which people took positions -- e.g., national health care -- are often so complicated that no normal person could possibly have confidence that their position actually is better. This seems to be bad on many levels: bad for the country, bad for communities, bad for personal happiness. Is this unprecedented? Will it continue? What caused it?
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