Why so divided?

Re “Bipartisan vision vanished amid a deepening divide,” Jan. 14

This article is a sad reminder of how I believe the press has consistently misjudged the political situation in our country.

Republicans have been carefully — but openly — creating a separate reality for decades. Republican voters have separate news sources, and it’s no secret that they mistrust and despise mainstream media. Yet that same media do them the favor of going along with fictions such as “President Obama wouldn’t work with them.”

I think this article ignores that stimulus discussions began while George W. Bush was still president. It ignores that Obamacare was built on a model designed by conservatives, which is how Republican Mitt Romney got something similar passed in Massachusetts.

Today’s Republican Party disdains the need for independently verifiable information. Gerrymandering — combined with the separate reality of right-wing media, fake news and aggressive suppression of likely Democratic votes from college students, people of color and the poor — completes the picture of a party that will not tolerate correction from any quarter. Renee Leask Glendale

One of the basics of negotiation strategy is that if one party seeks a win-win solution while the other seeks a win-lose, the winwin solution usually loses. The trouble with Obama’s “bipartisan vision” is that the Republicans didn’t share it; they aimed for Karl Rove’s win-lose vision, which promised a permanent, irreversible hold on power. And they’ve achieved it, using gerrymandered congressional districts and voter suppression to cheat their way into a congressional majority despite receiving a minority of votes.

The core democratic values of fair representation, checks and balances, and principled governance are out — but the GOP now has what it truly values: a monopoly on wealth and power. Linda Kranen Carlsbad

Bipartisanship under Obama failed because he never made any attempt to find common ground. The Affordable Care Act is a good example. House lawmakers saw the final version of the lengthy bill just a day before the vote.

A good case can be made that a vote for the bill under the circumstances was dereliction of duty. I think everyone (except perhaps the administration and the news media) recognizes that the document should have had a thorough review by people on both sides of the aisle. Virgil Weatherford Woodland Hills