03 May 2019

No… Democrats and Republicans are NOT the same.

So… you say yet again, “It’s not just the GOP. It seems almost all our lawmakers are way, way out of touch. The very real fact that all of us often struggle for basic needs means they’re [all] failing us. Near the top of the list of things I hate, is articles… that highlight the fact that the [offending person] is a Republican, as if to intimate that the Democratic solution is better. All it does [is]… create a false narrative for the purpose of getting votes.”
You could — perhaps — have comfortably made that argument 25 years ago — or, for the very generous of heart, maybe even 15 years ago. And then we could have discussed how both parties needed improvement.

However, I’m sorry, today it is NOT a “false narrative” that Republicans keep espousing repugnant ideas and working to ensconce those ideas in official policy. We have watched the GOP, for at least the last quarter century, descend ever more rapidly into our current nightmarish authoritarian extremism. Not only do the worst of them spew vile and hateful rhetoric, when they do, their Republican peers don’t do anything about it. Democrats are constantly accused of the “circular firing squad” for speaking and acting to hold peers to the higher standard. While, just as an example — yet again — the GOP primaries an actual card-carrying nazi in Arthur Jones, elected blatant racist Steve King, and are right now again primarying pedophile Roy Moore.

Former House Speaker, Paul Ryan actually said of his desire to gut Medicaid, “We’ve been dreaming of this since I’ve been around,” Ryan says, before interrupting himself to clarify exactly how big of an opportunity this is, “since you and I were drinking out of kegs.” Mitch McConnell is right now gutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs. The GOP has been waging war against America’s middle class and working poor since before the Reagan era with singleminded devotion to enriching the mega corporations and the wealth class. Even in Bill Clinton’s day, the GOP controlled Congress, and rammed through their agenda against America’s middle class and poor. The GOP’s patriotic religiosity and misogyny will settle for nothing less than the systematic tearing down of our constitutional democratic republic, creating a nightmare Handmaid’s Tale-like society by imposing their vision of a Dominionist theocratic corporate feudal state. We’re three fourths there already.

No one is saying Democrats are without faults, but they hold a clear moral high ground. It’s worse than a mere false equivalency to conclude that Republicans and Democrats are not different in their intent — it is a baldfaced, perfidious LIE. Democrats have often been ineffectual, but the overarching intent, since at least the time of LBJ, has been increasingly progressive and more inclusive. In that same span, the GOP has become increasingly fear mongering and divisive and exclusionary. It has been the GOP’s calculated arch strategy; it is known and has a name — “Nixon’s Southern Strategy.” The GOP continues to hone the stratagem for maximum fear mongering and divisiveness through patriotic religiosity to disenfranchise — nay, to oppress — as many non-GOP voters as possible.

Articles like the ones you so often decry highlight the fact that the person is a Republican because, for more than half a century, the GOP increasingly emboldens and embraces repugnant ideals. They create policies predicated upon stances that would have us believe that women are so morally and constitutionally weak that we mustn’t even be permitted the dignity of personhood that comes with autonomy over our own bodies; minorities and people of color (POC) aren’t American enough to freely vote; POC are inherently criminal in all they do and are a threat while living in spaces white privilege deems its own; all religion not their Christianish ideal is evil; and, the very existence of our LGBTQ Americans is a stain upon and dire threat to the nation’s very soul.

The GOP and Democrats are completely divergent on every issue
The GOP is exclusionary. The GOP denies climate change; disbelieves fact and science; is anti-intellectual; devalues education; and promotes regressivism. Twitter says their algorithm cannot distinguish between Republican and Alt-Right accounts. Misogyny and sexism are core values of the GOP. Racism and xenophobia are key pillars of GOP control over their base. Demonizing the LGBTQ and criminalizing women’s control over our own reproductive rights is integral to fomenting anger in the GOP base. Suppressing voting rights and access is the only way the GOP can cling to power. The GOP has been waging war against America’s middle class and poor for at least the last forty years, since the Reagan era. The GOP is fighting to take away our healthcare because they seem to believe healthcare is a privilege only for those who can afford it. The GOP only care about the corporations and the wealth class.

The GOP has become completely divergent from our constitutional democratic system. They are NOT part of our system any longer. They are destroying our system. It is calculated and systematic.
Democrats are inclusive. Democrats know climate change is real and immediate; embraces fact and science and intellect; they value education; and they promote progressivism. Democrats challenge misogyny and sexism. Democrats try to recognize past errors and work to reverse the impacts of institutionalized racism and xenophobia. Democrats believe ALL PEOPLE deserve the right to control their own bodies and to choose who they will be and who they will love. Democrats are fighting voter suppression and working to increase voter access. Democrats believe healthcare is a human right. Democrats care about all Americans.

No… Democrats and Republicans are NOT the same.
This link is a collection of actual things Republicans have said about women https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10207849909589262&type=3


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