Maybe Evolution

There was a time when I didn’t care about the party of the person I voted for in a presidential election. I went with whoever seemed the best, whatever that meant—more based on first impressions and how they spoke, less to do with policy. Or maybe it was policy. And I was more patriotic, for whatever that was worth.

Seeing that written out is embarrassing anymore.

Speaking of anymore, I look askance at most Republican candidates now, because of Donald Trump and the litter of outliers, possessors of disproportionate consequence in the House of Representatives, along with some Senators.

Republicans, at least the ones with the loudest voices, often come across as overly religious, antiseptic, paranoid, money-hungry, selfish and provincial, smug and angry. Democrats may be every bit the control freaks and as power-hungry, but they at least dare to be compassionate, more likely to be in tune with the human condition, more willing to get their hands dirty. Perhaps more idealistic, more likely to put themselves out there on behalf of anyone who is suffering and who needs a hand.

Republicans are quick to call needing a hand “laziness,” or “gaming the system.” A handout is blasphemy, so they resort to trigger words like Socialism or even Communism, but that’s just to scare people into voting for them.

There seems to be no room in the Republican lexicon for a social safety net, or even an acknowledgment that life can be hard and people need a hand from time to time. No doubt, the world can be a cold place, caught up in a blind allegiance to capitalism, mergers and acquisitions, ledgers and bottom lines and tax breaks for people who don’t need but have come to expect them. But all that seems to be missing the point.

Enough Republicans believe white is right, and every other hue is somehow suspect. And the whole national security, always a heartbeat away from Armageddon, “America—love it or leave it” vibe is tired and disingenuous, patriotism with blinders on.

I think it was George Carlin who boiled down the difference between Republicans and Democrats to saying Republicans are more interested in stuff and things; Democrats are more interested in people. Let’s add that Republicans seem to hold the bootstraps mentality on a pedestal—as in picking oneself up by the bootstraps, every man for himself. Self-sufficiency, making your own way, endless achievement and a certain blindness or aversion to any sense of corporal connectedness.

At some point, I decided that this Republican mantra sucked, and Democrats were more closely aligned with my understanding of human needs and what actually makes the world go ’round.