Are you trying to say with a straight face that a law introduced by a Republican and passed by the first Republican-controlled legislature in 40 years is "de-regulation under Bill Clinton"? And then, surprise, George Soros pops into the mix without any mention of Romney-connected Bain Capital owning part of iHeart/Clear Channel which is an order of magnitude bigger?

Seems intellectually disingenuous to me.

I would add Sinclair to the stack:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group

I see we both hate Mitt Romney, thats a start.

Politics is starting to turn more and more into a football match.

And if you don't want to play along with the 'winner-takes-all' dynamic, then by consequence you'll lose anyway.

Politics as the heart of deliberative democracy seems already like a long lost ideal, or maybe that is too romantic a thought and it never really was like this to begin with? Maybe I am just getting old.

You are onto something here. If this topic interests you, there are worse places than https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/.

The writing style can be challenging at times, but it will answer some of your questions.

In the past elections were, at least on occassion, won by massive landslides, before then the 'other side' ending up back in power.

This is only possible if people, at scale, were voting based on merit, rather than tribalism.

Nowadays either side could run a literal vegetable and get near half the vote.

It was always a strong reality in places where politics are a over simplistic two sided view "Left" vs "Right".

This botched view can only lead to the herd mentality of "if you're not like us, you're wrong", which in the US or South Korea has slowly turned to "if you're note like us, you're dangerous".

Democracy needs a personal implication into complex concepts that can't be answered with yes or no and many people lack the will to understand those concepts. Whoever comes forward and says "I'll handle this complex issue this way" will be the new messiah.

This now seems like the downside of bringing huge knowledge to the masses with the internet. Now that everyone knows everything, they don't want anything to do with it.

Maybe it's also linked to a current trend that you're supposed to have an opinion about everything happening. If you say that you're with the "magenta" party, everybody knows "your opinion" without the need of forging one yourself.

You have no idea who I hate. To me Mitt Romney is on the same footing as George Soros or the Easter bunny. I've never met them. They are notions that live in my head based on things I've heard and read about them in the media. I might dislike the idea of them or what they've supposedly done but to hate them would be absurd.

To say that mutual hatred of Santa Claus-level figures is a starting point for discourse says a lot about your attitude. Please review the HN commenting guidelines.

I learned years ago to either give constructive mutually agreed upon ahead of time peer reviews or not give any. I always run this type of stuff by the recipient to make sure that it isn't a surprise. Not too long ago I had one cartoonishly insecure coworker recruit another colleague to their cause of poo-pooing me. The latter wrote something like "they care more about doing things right than delivering quickly" because I surfaced too many obvious architectural issues in my PR comments (actual ones where they departed from our mutually agreed spec, not trite OO pedant nonsense). Thankfully my manager told me of it and dismissed it in much the same manner I did but I didn't feel great about being thrust back to junior high school social behavior.

> Thankfully my manager told me of it and dismissed it in much the same manner I did but I didn't feel great about being thrust back to junior high school social behavior.

I had an interesting interaction years ago where an engineer in my team shared his fear that a negative peer review would shape his performance review. I made a similar point to him: as the manager, I read all feedback but it’s my judgement as the manager that determines the review.

If I’m just parroting the comments of others and treating the review as just taking the average then I’m no better than Metacritic!

In my experience it's not just the judgement of the manager but the judgement of their whole reporting chain. All of which can read the reviews and may be the ultimate decision makers on promotions/ratings.

Yes, it does depend on the organisation. I do expect my manager to read and have input on my reports, as my team’s outputs indirectly affect my manager’s outputs.

I question the value of this the higher up the chain it goes, as managers get more and more removed from the people doing the work. That said, it does happen and it’s not always a good thing.

In those situations, you can address the comments directly in the review, or summary, but you can’t directly control what other people take out of the reviews.

> "they care more about doing things right than delivering quickly"

Is it actually supposed to be a negative review...

There's being polite and then there's this. You're throwing the baby with the bathwater. Don't do this. Claim this as an achievement and proof of your integrity instead.

^ This. This x 100.

You choose your friends because you have shared interests and you make each other feel good. You have family because they brought you into the world and you have shared qualities and bonds. You chose your job because it pays you. You do it for the ducats. Don't get it twisted.