Okay, so, liberals often criticize me, when I attack the democratic party all of the time, asking why I don't focus on the republican party more? Well, because if you are reading this blog, it should go without saying that I don't agree with republicans. I find the party abhorrent and a force of evil in the 21st century thus far. Heck, one of the things 2012 refers to in this blog wasn't just a spiritual awakening that made me an atheist, but also a political awakening that made me stop being conservative. So I have strong opinions on the GOP, and I believe they are bad. And I also want to discuss this because when liberals were criticized for identity politics earlier, their constant go to was "but the republicans do it too!", to which I answer, no crap, but that doesn't mean that the democrats should too. That said, I would like to discuss the republicans briefly.
When I was growing up, I was raised republican. I was a strong christian and I believe that the republicans were the moral party and democrats were immoral. On social issues, republicans stood for God and what he wanted on stuff, while the democrats stood for sin, like abortion and homosexuality. I also looked down for the democrats on racial issues. I believed that we shouldn't be just letting people into the country as they take our jobs and go on welfare and get crap for free on our tax dollars, and I believed that welfare incentivized laziness and bought minority votes. This led into the economics, which was similarly selfish. I believed that democrats wanted to give people, normally minorities, crap for free, while middle class white republicans pay for it. I may not have been as hard line with the racial perspective on it, but let's be honest, that's a lot of the white republican mindset, and I'm expressing these views now in order to attack them later on. It's resentment politics. The republicans get middle class whites who are relatively self sufficient to punch down on poor people, people of color, etc., while pushing low tax small government policies that involve eviscerating the safety net. THese guys pride themselves on self reliance, and paying your own way.
The problem is, none of this works, and all of this is a huge scam to give more money to rich people. The fact is, welfare isnt a huge part of the budget. Social security is, but that's seen as cool by even a lot of republicans as you "earn" it. But other than the healthcare portion, which is part of a broken system as I understand now, welfare is actually quite small. And it's condition. And hard to get on. And hard to stay on. And illegals don't get it. And it actually stops people from working due to perverse incentives, while simultaneously punishing them for not doing so, and it's a mess. And then the recession happened, and I understood, gee, there are no jobs, we need to give people unemployment until they get back on their feet. And then instead these guys just wanted to cut that to give tax cuts to rich people to create jobs, while at the same time, these guys were reporting record profits and laying people off anyway. My dad was laid off permanently in 2011. They basically told him thank you for helping us make record profits but in order to keep them, we gotta lay you off. Yeah. All that small government garbage, it's a grift. None of it is real, and none of it is in good faith. Government with no safety nets leads to a dystopia and as i witnessed the aftermath of the great recession, I understood this more and more. So by 2012 I moved left enough to essentially be a moderate democrat who voted for Obama. The GOP just lost its appeal. I became an atheist and that moved me left on social issues as I understood there's no logical reason to be against social permissiveness as people didn't exactly harm others, and I moved left enough where on economics I understood that yeah, we needed safety nets.
And then I as I developed my views through 2013 and 2014 I shifted toward what we now would call a yang style human centered capitalist. Cut from the same cloth as yang, inspired by the same people, like Scott Santens. I became pro UBI as it not only did a better job at solving poverty than a broken safety net, but it also rebuffed a lot of conservative complaints about welfare. it got rid of perverse incentives, removed the whole "i work so hard why should i pay money for other people to live?", uh so lets make it where we all pay ourselves. We all get money, there's no shame, or stigma, or reason to be resentful.And on race, I shifted left too. I understood critical theory enough to understand there are issues there. I never emphasized it though and largely focused on the economic side of the equation, and largely on shielding POC from the unfair attacks from the GOP. I understood by this point the GOP was playing with racism behind a lot of dog whistley stuff, and I'm largely like, yep, let's set the record straight and make these guys look like the stupid racists they are. And that's where I was with that. I wasn't an SJW, I wasn't trying to change "culture" by shoving inclusivity and all of the crap the dems do today down peoples' throats, I was just like, yeah okay, let's debunk these lies and falsehoods.That's how you win against the GOP. By being right and making them look like idiots.
I mean, at the end of the day, that's all the GOP is. It's a giant smokescreen. It basically tricks people into resenting other people and being afraid of them taking their jobs and their paychecks, all while the rich sneak in, set progress back, and reduce their own taxes and make people more desperate. It's a huge grift. It goes without saying, but that's what the republican party has been since nixon and reagan. And Trump is just more of the same. Just a bit more unhinged.
The GOP is evil to the core. Its very ideals are rotten, its ideology is rotten. There's nothing good about it. It's also a laughing stock, and I believe if we just took the moral high ground on the left and relentlessly mocked them and called them out on their lies, while pushing progressive policies that help people, that that's the winning strategy.
So knowing all of this, why do I focus on the democrats? Well,you see, I never really adjusted to democratic party culture. Even if I moved left on race, i never got into the circlejerk. All HRC did by making idpol so mainstream and weaponizing it was demonstrating what i thought was a conservative strawman...wasn't a strawman. I mean, the democrats did such a bad job on that, that it actually shifted me back right somewhat. Not because I agree with the right and its racism, but i become an exhausted independent who just sees both sides as children. And on economics, i started understanding that liberal policies, while better than conservative ones, suck. The ACA was a pathetic band aid. Welfare sucked compared to UBI. I mean, when I said we needed a new new deal based on UBI, M4A, and free college, I was focusing on addressing what I considered the biggest problems America is facing. it's facing a poverty and a jobs crisis, with the great recession laying bare how broken the economic system is. Healthcare was broken and the ACA wasnt doing it so I was for medicare for all. And being overburdened by student debt for no real financial reward, I decided that we needed to make college free and forgive student debt. On these three pillars, we solve america's most pressing problems.
But that's where I started going against the democrats. They started the idpol circlejerk and pushed for more status quo policies, and shot down the few people who actually did have solutions and I just got turned off. So now I focus my wrath on the democrats. Because let's face it, they're not much better than the GOP. On policy, sure, but their role within the system is a lot like the GOP. They use identity politics and politics of resentment to keep things the same and keep rich people happy. They're just nicer about it and significantly less evil. But that doesn't make them the good guys. At the end of the day, they're anti progress too, and their idpol is just about keeping people trapped in a feedback loop of infighting over stupid BS instead of focusing on real issues.
Anyway, this is yet another reason I wanna join the forward party. I'd rather focus on solutions than deal with this petty garbage. But just remember, no matter what i think about the democrats, yes, the GOP is bad. It goes without saying. I have nothing good to say about it. I might occasionally praise the democrats if they suck a little less. Thats the difference between them.
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