Democrats have always felt extremely comfortable bashing Republicans to me. As for why–your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it’s because I’m a libertarian. They hear that and think, “Hrm, well, he’s a libertarian and I’m a liberal, and the first five letters are the same, which means he must think at least somewhat like I do, so I don’t see any harm in wasting the next twenty minutes of his life expounding on how the GOP is the enemy of progress, the bastion of out-moded ideas, and, essentially, the fountainhead of everything that’s wrong in America.” Or perhaps I just have one of those faces that says, “Bore me…please.” Regardless, I always seem to wind up at the ass end of a marginally coherent tirade in which I’m told that Bush is Hitler, Cheney is the Devil, Republicans use Hispanic quadriplegics instead of clay pigeons when they go skeet shooting, and Obama is just dreamy.
Occasionally, the mood will strike me right, and I’ll inform them that if they’re looking for validation or camaraderie, they’ve come to the wrong place–that our similarities are purely alphabetical, and that philosophically we couldn’t be farther apart. And if I’m feeling particularly prickly, I’ll explain to them with a sigh that many moons ago I would have indeed been called a liberal–a classical liberal, to be precise–before their unimaginative progressivist ancestors hijacked and bastardized our word. But more often than not, I end up biting my tongue and tuning out.
For one, I don’t typically feel inclined to defend the Republican platform. While some of my views certainly lean more right than left, there’s much along the Republican party line with which I disagree. And as for seizing the opportunity to expound the libertarian worldview, experience has taught me that trying to demonstrate the merits of free market capitalism, limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility to liberals is about as worthwhile a chore as discussing the impact of Yeats on modernism to a class of ineffectual, iPhone-entranced 16-year-olds–given either option and the alternative of slamming my balls in a dresser drawer, I’d gleefully select door number three.
These encounters never used to bother me much. I’d chalk them up to having the bad luck of being a magnet for the fringes of the Democratic party–the ones politicians hope skip out on rallies and show up en masse on election days. But the more I look around, the more it seems these fiery rants speak to a general ugliness, hatefulness and ignorance in the attitudes of Democrats towards Republicans today.
In the eyes of far too many vision-impaired Democrats, Republicans are evil. To them, the predominately red-colored region between the left and right coasts is a vast wasteland brimming with bigoted, bible-beating ignoramuses, too uninformed to make an educated decision on anything, and too unintelligent to even try. And their representatives and leaders are merely slightly less unintelligent, if somewhat more opportunistic, individuals who’ve managed to push their way to the front of the lynch mob. Honorless fat cats, content to serve as shills for big business and instruments of the religious right, and bent on maintaining the insidious status quo in Washington. They are fueled by greed. They lust for power. They exist to oppress, stifle, discriminate, exploit, pervert and cash out. And they are all of them united in an omnidirectional disdain for all but Christ’s children, and a wistful longing for a time when being half black meant you couldn’t be President, and being all white meant you weren’t necessarily the scourge of the earth.
This mindless demonization of the GOP and its supporters doesn’t accurately describe Republicans any more than “soft-headed, bleeding-heart, guilt-stricken, tree-hugging, multi-culturalist, quasi-Marxist, crypto-fascist pussies with lofty visions and big opinions about everything, and knowledge about slightly more than nothing” accurately portrays Democrats. These caricatures describe, if anything, the extremes of the spectrum. And when you use the extremes of a spectrum to define its entirety, you are creating an image that is fundamentally false. Are there nuggets of truth in either? Of course. But to think that’s what all Republicans or all Democrats are all about is simply lazy thinking.
I have a number of Republican friends and family members (some of my best friends are Jewish too, and I’ve easily had over a dozen black people over my house). They’re good people. Moral people. They’re well educated, well read and well informed. They have families and friends whom they care deeply about, and want nothing more than a world in which they can live freely and happily. They want people to be treated equally. They want their politicians to behave and act in their best interest. They want peace. And they feel that the decisions on how to best live their lives are best left up to them.
I’m not saying that all Republicans are like this. Indeed, some are thoroughly repelling, though typically for reasons that transcend Republicanism. But most that I know and meet are way more in line with that generalization than with any that effectively liken them to minions of the Underworld. And, quite frankly, if any of the above qualities strikes you as evil, you should probably throw in the towel on thinking right now.
Republicans simply have different ideas than Democrats on how to go about achieving, what are more often than not, the same ideals. Democrats love to spin this as in indicator of a lack of information and intelligence–Republicans are just too ill-informed and stupid to grasp the intricacies of complex issues, and therefore ill-equipped to generate meaningful views. Thus their opinions are reductionist and obtuse and not up to the perceived level of discourse on which the Democrats operate. They cannot fathom that a Republican could accept or reject anything based on a more substantial set of criteria than, “Is it sufficiently evil, does the Bible say it’s kosher, and will it keep minorities down?”
Take, for example, healthcare. Democrats hear Republicans denounce their plans for government funded healthcare, and claim they’re doing so because they want to stifle progress in America, line their pockets with kickbacks from insurance companies, and because “denying” people their “basic human right” of healthcare satiates their evil Republican urges. That their objections might be based on the exorbitant costs on top of an already absurdly huge deficit, higher taxes, the potential for a decline in the quality of care, the greater expansion of government control in the private sector, the hijacking of doctor/patient decision-making, the use of fines and penalties to coerce businesses and individuals, the artificial lowering of prices without lowering actual costs, the fact that rationing seems inextricable with socialized medicine in every other part of the world does not even cross their mind. That they might object on the basis of preferring medical savings accounts, allowing competition across state lines, or eliminating the 3rd party payer system is not within the realm of possibility. It is purely, “not a fan of government run healhcare = not a fan of humankind.”
Take Obama as another example. Think Republicans didn’t vote for Obama because of his views, voting record and lack of qualifications? Not according to Democrats. Nope, they didn’t vote for him because they’re all racist. Marginal experience, a liberal voting record, extremely questionable political and organizational and personal ties, a Chicago machine background, socialist tendencies, a tenuous grasp of history, a disregard for basic economics, a shameless love affair with FDR, utter ineptitude in foreign policy, unrestrained vision, a scarily inflated sense of self and purpose, incomparable skill in talking out of both sides of his mouth, a friggin’ Jedi master of talking without saying anything…none of this held any weight at all. They simply took one look at him and said, “Dear lord, look how brown he is, would you just look at how BROWN he is! Fire up, I said fire up them crosses, that Muslim must be stopped!!!!” The night Obama won the election, every Republican cried themselves to sleep–an autographed picture of George Wallace clutched tightly in their arms…a thoroughly dog-eared Mein Kampf resting cold and lonely on the night table.
The problem with Democrats trying to vilify Republicans, while shoving their own agenda down our throats, is that they are engaging in exactly the type of behavior they profess to abhor. Presuming that their differences of opinion indicate an intellectual and moral imbalance between parties is about as reductionist and obtuse as it gets. If these issues are in fact as intricate and complex as the Democrats claim, then isn’t it perfectly reasonable that critical examination from different people might yield different conclusions? Isn’t the consideration and valuing of the variety of ideas from all people and parties the very essence of the democracy the Democrats claim to be trying to restore? It all seems very hypocritical and spiteful to me.
Of course there are some Republicans who oppose government run healthcare purely on the basis that it will interfere with lining their pockets. But so are there Democrats who support healthcare purely on the basis of receiving special funding for their states and pet projects, and justifying their existence by making big government bigger. Are there Republicans who voted against Obama simply because he’s half black and couldn’t stomach the thought of someone of his melanin content running the country? Most definitely. Just as there are Democrats who did the same. And that is unquestionably simple-minded and sad. But no more simple-minded and sad than the slews of people from both parties who voted for Obama simply because he’s half black, and therefore felt it was the “progressive” or “hip” or “anti-racist” thing to do, or saw it as their chance to “answer the call of history,” or even as the ultimate release valve for years of pent-up white guilt. It’s what Thomas Sowell astutely called, “Racial Roulette.” And from what I’ve seen this past year, hipsters–you got the unlucky chamber.
Look, I understand where the Democrats are coming from. After eight years of suffering through an abysmal administration, their big wins have put them in a position to kick some Republican ass. House majority! Senate majority! And the White House’s albedo has been positively HALVED, muthafucka! You’ve got the Speaker of the House declaring we won, so we make the laws! You’ve got a fired-up Harry Reid–a lover of all things light skinned with no Negro dialect–doing…well…as Harry Reid does. You’ve got a thuggish president who uses his state of the union address to assure Democrats that they hold the higher ground and Republicans that they will not be allowed to stand in their way, and never misses an opportunity to stir the masses by lambasting the wellspring of greed and evil and Republican kick-backs that is big business (on a related note, is it me, or is the relentless attack on Corporate America by a president with his very own fucking logo the pinnacle of irony?). You’ve got a media-fueled cult of personality that any Latin American dictator would kill–and likely has killed–for. And you’ve got a veritable army of HOPE-clad drones parroting your party line. If ever there was a time where you could do some serious damage across the isle, it’s now.
Or, you could take the high road–you know, the one reserved solely for the Democrats–and behave with some dignity and decency. Stop lumping people together under false umbrellas. Stop demonizing simply because you disagree. Stop labeling because you can’t think far enough past your own prejudices and narrow worldview to see room for alternative ideas. Such ugliness does little more than offend and polarize. If anything else, it fires up the nut-bags who DO fit your stereotypes, and that’s not good for anyone. And in spite of how good it might make you feel to exalt yourself and throw shit from your joke of a pedestal, you really do look like a jackass from down here.
-jeff
p.s. To any indignant Democrats who feel I’m being unfair–I am well aware that the Republicans are just as guilty. But, much as it keeps me from sleeping through the night, right now the Democrats are the ones in charge of screwing up the country. When the Republicans are once again at the helm of the short bus barreling headlong up the asshole of the American people (which, thanks to the Democrats’ bang-up job thus far, will likely occur this November, and again in 2012), you can guarantee I’ll be taking aim at them. Until then, physician–heal thyself.
Yeah, okay, I’m kidding. And funny enough, I didn’t find out about the supposed Scottish penchant for penury (rivaled only by that of an ethnic and religious group I will not name) until I was a teenager, as my parents, relatives, and the Scots down at the Scots Club in Kearny never evinced these traits. If any Scots were overly cautious with expenditures, it’s probably because they were dirt-poor growing up. Oddly, I was intitially informed of this stereotype by a Hungarian, who added that only the (ethnic and religious group that I will not name) have a worse reputation for cheapness.
