> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.

Only if you're looking at it from the Democratic perspective. From the Republican side they look at Democratic policies from the last decade and see a group that suddenly decided to throw all previous social norms out the window and upend social order. They see themselves as reacting to that change in the Democratic Party.

I think the truth is that both parties simultaneously escalated, but that perspective usually gets shouted down pretty hard by both sides who each really want to perceive themselves as the consistent one.

Well, OP was responding to this:

> when half the populations entire political identity is “whatever we think will make the other side angry”?

The idea here is that Republicans are somehow out to spite the Democrats more than vice versa, and I frankly don't see it. Both sides believe the other to be acting in bad faith, and honestly from my perspective it certainly looks like both sides are acting in bad faith.

We've had more than our fair share of close calls to government shutdowns the past four years, but let's not forget that Congress actually did fail to fund the government twice during Trump's presidency. The current Congress flirts with the line but has always ended up actually finding something that can pass.

Spite is only one kind of bad faith, and when it comes specifically to spite it doesn't seem to me like it's balanced between the parties.

Except it was. The parties have been calling each other every dirty word in the book since forever. You can sample how it looked like about 150 years ago: https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2012/11/running-for-governor....

> And the republicans have changed a lot more than the democrats on that front.

Of course, your team have always been standing for the common sense but the other team is just crazy now. Long gone are the times of Bush presidency, where the parties lives in almost perfect harmony, and the worst thing the President could be called by the opposing politician is "this esteemed and honorable man is sometimes mistaken". If only would could go back to those golden times.

> The parties have been calling each other every dirty word in the book since forever.

I don't know why you think this is relevant to what I'm saying.

> Of course, your team have always been standing for the common sense but the other team is just crazy now.

That's not what I said at all. I said both teams used to be more similar in a specific way.

And neither one was very good.