I had some thoughts on this interesting article and was gonna thread them on my Twitter timeline, but I have too much to say on the matter, so I decided to dig out and dust off my old blog and post them here.
Here's the thing about explicitly disliking a "political other" that the media doesn't want to cop to: There is actually clearly a right and wrong side at this point in history.
Once upon a time, the differences in the Democratic and the Republican parties were simply regional and political stances on tax policy and fiscal spending and a myriad of other procedural thingamabobs. Precisely because both parties were inherently and inexorably racist, misogynistic, and LGBTQ-phobic because America was vastly racist, misogynistic, and LGBTQ-phobic.
Some might argue that it still is. And they're right. It is. But it used to be FAR, FAR worse and much more banally violent about it, too. POC, women, and LGBTQ people were freely beaten and murdered, with little repercussion to their attackers, for merely existing, or having the AUDACITY for wanting to be simply left alone in that existence, or—crime of crimes—to have the same fair chance white men enjoy in life. Finally, enough people banded together and made their voices loud enough in declaring that this was not right, protections are needed, and slowly, reluctantly, the government began to listen.
The Civil Rights Act in 1964 ended racial segregation and employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but any woman or person of color will tell you racism and sexism still exist and are still practiced in less-than overt ways that are difficult to prove in a legal system which still favors the wealthy and the white and the cis-het male among us with leniency and a larger share of the benefit of the doubt. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to remove the last state and local barriers meant to keep POC from exercising their right to vote.
In the decades following the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, LGTBQ people and their allies fought tirelessly for the right to live lives free of persecution, which finally culminated in 2003 when Lawrence v. Texas struck down so-called "anti-sodomy laws," and then 12 years later upon winning the right to marry whom they choose with Obergefell v. Hodges. However, systemic prejudice against LGBTQ people is still perfectly legal in 26 states.
That's right. Twenty-six states—more than half the nation—find nothing legally immoral about firing, evicting, or otherwise banning/refusing service to people for simply being LGBTQ. Some even go so far as to protect people's ability to do so under so-called "religious expression" laws. Several more, out of pure spite, refuse to remove anti-gay consensual sex-act prohibitions from their law books even though the U.S. Supreme Court banned them from enforcing those laws nearly 16 years ago.
As America evolved to remove institutional roadblocks and oppression, one party started to recognize the inalienable humanity in us all (begrudgingly at first, but more and more without question as the generations have passed) and now actually embraces as an irrefutable truth that all humans are equal and should be treated as such under the law.
Undeniably, the taint of LGBTQ-phobia controlled the Democratic party all the way into the '90s and arguably up until Obama finally came out in support of full—unfettered by "states' rights" arguments—marriage equality in 2012. Also true is that the Democratic Party still has deep systemic problems and is still way too eager to rally around mediocre white men in favor of more qualified women, POC, or LGBTQ politicians when it comes to national offices, but it has made huge strides in just the past two decades and continues to bend its moral arc toward justice and fairness.
Then there is the other party.
The GOP, at its core, blocks efforts to end racism and misogyny, and still wants to at best re-criminalize LGBTQ people and at worst imprison, exile, or even execute us. They vacillate on these issues and refuse to condemn the very worst elements of their party when they speak in coded terms of drowning their children were they to be gay. They block efforts to expand the legal protections of the Civil Rights Act despite overwhelming public support, and it takes outright acts of violence to even elicit that most tepid and pandering of ineffective refrains: "thoughts and prayers."
Even now, the GOP is fervently working to undermine and overturn Roe v. Wade, and thus erase the right of every woman to make medical decisions for herself under no one's guidance but that of the trained medical professional of her choice. History has already shown how harmful and downright deadly to women this kind of legislative overreach is, yet they persist in their attempts to bring back those dark and dangerous times.
The GOP may pay lip service to POC by constantly invoking Abraham Lincoln and the 14th Amendment as their hallmark "we were anti-racist before it was cool" card, but the intervening years have proven theirs is no longer the party of Lincoln. Since the 1960s, they have impeded, watered down, or actively blocked legislation that would protect POC and level the playing field for them in everyday life. In more recent years, they have nakedly used their party's control at local and state levels to gerrymander districts and rig state voting laws to make it so difficult for POC to vote as to be nigh impossible, exploiting loopholes in and blatantly flouting the spirit of the Voting Rights Act.
The foundation of all social contracts and which underlays all morality and ethics, is basically this one simple ideal: Do no harm. Distilling it down to this simple, yet profoundly universal truth creates a very real moral and ethical difference in the two parties.
All fiscal policies aside, one party has evolved and continues to evolve its platform to raise up and protect all walks of humanity while the other actively tries to inflict harm on certain segments of the population for its own aims of wealth hoarding and maintaining its grip on legislative power. One side (sometimes over-zealously) condemns members of its own party if they are found to have behaved reprehensibly, while the other lies naked in its hypocrisy on such matters.
To put it more simply and free of motivations, one side actively attempts to hurt people based on their sex, the color of their skin, their lack of Christian belief, their gender identity, or whom they love. The other actively tries to protect and help people, to do better for all people in general, and protect the liberty and safety of those their "political opponents" would seek to harm, regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Or to put it in even simpler, net-effect of successful actions, terms: One side hurts people, the other side helps people.
Which brings me to people who are "fiscally conservative" but "socially progressive/liberal" who still hold their noses and vote Republican because they believe it is still economically advantageous to do so. They claim they want the GOP to evolve on human rights, yet do little to hold the party accountable because doing so might be fiscally inconvenient in the near term. They claim people are working on the inside to turn things around on human rights issues. Poppycock.
The only way you will ever see the change you claim to want so that you can have your preferred slice of economic pie and human rights, too, is to vote against your party. Ta-da! That's it. Force them to change by forcing them out of power. Only through a thorough and devastating reckoning will your party ever change for the better. Yeah, you may have to put up with a decade of Democratic fiscal policy that keeps you a little less rich, but ask yourself, how many pieces of silver is your conscience (assuming you have one) really worth?
To my historically Republican friends, if you truly are my friend, you would help me burn down what your party has become by holding your nose and voting against it, even though it means sacrificing your fiscal wish list in the short-term. It's the only way they will listen to you or cede power to you so that you can rebuild the Party of Lincoln as a benevolent party of true political differences you claim to want. Because by continuing to support the GOP despite all the evidence of the harm they perpetrate on POC, women, and LGBTQ people, you're telling me loud and clear that your tax returns are worth more to you than my life. Maybe that's the biggest difference between us. When I pick a side, I start with human rights and stop there when I see harm is being done because I don't care what a party's fiscal policies are if they're hurting people. But you start and stop at the fiscal policies and how they benefit you.
And to the media at large I put to you the same argument. Ignoring this stark juxtaposition of right and wrong is disingenuous and smacks of cynical ratings/clickbait mongering by keeping the legitimacy of a morally and ethically bankrupt party on life support through framing these oppositions as mere "political differences." These are no longer mere political differences. These are unambiguously right and wrong sides of who gets to live in freedom and who gets to die in oppression.
I know propping up this malfeasance and cancerous status quo of both-sides-ism is more lucrative, but continuing to prop up the side that actively tries to cause real harm to entire swaths of the population in itself violates the journalistic tenet of neutrality. By giving legitimacy to a clearly harmful party by propping up its misogynistic, racist, and LGBTQ-phobic platform as an argument worthy of uncritical display is in itself taking its side because it is a de facto endorsement of those ideals. Yet you continue to do it because holding that side accountable for its lack of humanity would actually aid in forcing change, until one day the differences in the two parties truly would be merely political, and that's not sexy nor dramatic. It's boring as hell. Because from a ratings perspective, safety and equality is exactly that: boring.
That's what it all boils down to though, isn't it? Money. And until we hold each other accountable for putting money ahead of the safety and well-being of our fellow citizens, we will never break free of this cycle.
So you're right, mealy-mouthed authors of The Atlantic; as long as the Republican Party actively tries to harm people and presents a clear and present danger to the civil rights and safety of my fellow humans, I will harbor a deep mistrust for anyone who still props up that party to protect their own pocketbooks. Not just because I am one of the humans threatened by the party they support, but because when it comes to basic human decency, to doing no harm, standing against tyranny and oppression is always the right thing to do, no matter the cost.
Here's the thing about explicitly disliking a "political other" that the media doesn't want to cop to: There is actually clearly a right and wrong side at this point in history.
Once upon a time, the differences in the Democratic and the Republican parties were simply regional and political stances on tax policy and fiscal spending and a myriad of other procedural thingamabobs. Precisely because both parties were inherently and inexorably racist, misogynistic, and LGBTQ-phobic because America was vastly racist, misogynistic, and LGBTQ-phobic.
Some might argue that it still is. And they're right. It is. But it used to be FAR, FAR worse and much more banally violent about it, too. POC, women, and LGBTQ people were freely beaten and murdered, with little repercussion to their attackers, for merely existing, or having the AUDACITY for wanting to be simply left alone in that existence, or—crime of crimes—to have the same fair chance white men enjoy in life. Finally, enough people banded together and made their voices loud enough in declaring that this was not right, protections are needed, and slowly, reluctantly, the government began to listen.
The Civil Rights Act in 1964 ended racial segregation and employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but any woman or person of color will tell you racism and sexism still exist and are still practiced in less-than overt ways that are difficult to prove in a legal system which still favors the wealthy and the white and the cis-het male among us with leniency and a larger share of the benefit of the doubt. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to remove the last state and local barriers meant to keep POC from exercising their right to vote.
In the decades following the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, LGTBQ people and their allies fought tirelessly for the right to live lives free of persecution, which finally culminated in 2003 when Lawrence v. Texas struck down so-called "anti-sodomy laws," and then 12 years later upon winning the right to marry whom they choose with Obergefell v. Hodges. However, systemic prejudice against LGBTQ people is still perfectly legal in 26 states.
That's right. Twenty-six states—more than half the nation—find nothing legally immoral about firing, evicting, or otherwise banning/refusing service to people for simply being LGBTQ. Some even go so far as to protect people's ability to do so under so-called "religious expression" laws. Several more, out of pure spite, refuse to remove anti-gay consensual sex-act prohibitions from their law books even though the U.S. Supreme Court banned them from enforcing those laws nearly 16 years ago.
As America evolved to remove institutional roadblocks and oppression, one party started to recognize the inalienable humanity in us all (begrudgingly at first, but more and more without question as the generations have passed) and now actually embraces as an irrefutable truth that all humans are equal and should be treated as such under the law.
Undeniably, the taint of LGBTQ-phobia controlled the Democratic party all the way into the '90s and arguably up until Obama finally came out in support of full—unfettered by "states' rights" arguments—marriage equality in 2012. Also true is that the Democratic Party still has deep systemic problems and is still way too eager to rally around mediocre white men in favor of more qualified women, POC, or LGBTQ politicians when it comes to national offices, but it has made huge strides in just the past two decades and continues to bend its moral arc toward justice and fairness.
Then there is the other party.
The GOP, at its core, blocks efforts to end racism and misogyny, and still wants to at best re-criminalize LGBTQ people and at worst imprison, exile, or even execute us. They vacillate on these issues and refuse to condemn the very worst elements of their party when they speak in coded terms of drowning their children were they to be gay. They block efforts to expand the legal protections of the Civil Rights Act despite overwhelming public support, and it takes outright acts of violence to even elicit that most tepid and pandering of ineffective refrains: "thoughts and prayers."
Even now, the GOP is fervently working to undermine and overturn Roe v. Wade, and thus erase the right of every woman to make medical decisions for herself under no one's guidance but that of the trained medical professional of her choice. History has already shown how harmful and downright deadly to women this kind of legislative overreach is, yet they persist in their attempts to bring back those dark and dangerous times.
The GOP may pay lip service to POC by constantly invoking Abraham Lincoln and the 14th Amendment as their hallmark "we were anti-racist before it was cool" card, but the intervening years have proven theirs is no longer the party of Lincoln. Since the 1960s, they have impeded, watered down, or actively blocked legislation that would protect POC and level the playing field for them in everyday life. In more recent years, they have nakedly used their party's control at local and state levels to gerrymander districts and rig state voting laws to make it so difficult for POC to vote as to be nigh impossible, exploiting loopholes in and blatantly flouting the spirit of the Voting Rights Act.
The foundation of all social contracts and which underlays all morality and ethics, is basically this one simple ideal: Do no harm. Distilling it down to this simple, yet profoundly universal truth creates a very real moral and ethical difference in the two parties.
All fiscal policies aside, one party has evolved and continues to evolve its platform to raise up and protect all walks of humanity while the other actively tries to inflict harm on certain segments of the population for its own aims of wealth hoarding and maintaining its grip on legislative power. One side (sometimes over-zealously) condemns members of its own party if they are found to have behaved reprehensibly, while the other lies naked in its hypocrisy on such matters.
To put it more simply and free of motivations, one side actively attempts to hurt people based on their sex, the color of their skin, their lack of Christian belief, their gender identity, or whom they love. The other actively tries to protect and help people, to do better for all people in general, and protect the liberty and safety of those their "political opponents" would seek to harm, regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Or to put it in even simpler, net-effect of successful actions, terms: One side hurts people, the other side helps people.
Which brings me to people who are "fiscally conservative" but "socially progressive/liberal" who still hold their noses and vote Republican because they believe it is still economically advantageous to do so. They claim they want the GOP to evolve on human rights, yet do little to hold the party accountable because doing so might be fiscally inconvenient in the near term. They claim people are working on the inside to turn things around on human rights issues. Poppycock.
The only way you will ever see the change you claim to want so that you can have your preferred slice of economic pie and human rights, too, is to vote against your party. Ta-da! That's it. Force them to change by forcing them out of power. Only through a thorough and devastating reckoning will your party ever change for the better. Yeah, you may have to put up with a decade of Democratic fiscal policy that keeps you a little less rich, but ask yourself, how many pieces of silver is your conscience (assuming you have one) really worth?
To my historically Republican friends, if you truly are my friend, you would help me burn down what your party has become by holding your nose and voting against it, even though it means sacrificing your fiscal wish list in the short-term. It's the only way they will listen to you or cede power to you so that you can rebuild the Party of Lincoln as a benevolent party of true political differences you claim to want. Because by continuing to support the GOP despite all the evidence of the harm they perpetrate on POC, women, and LGBTQ people, you're telling me loud and clear that your tax returns are worth more to you than my life. Maybe that's the biggest difference between us. When I pick a side, I start with human rights and stop there when I see harm is being done because I don't care what a party's fiscal policies are if they're hurting people. But you start and stop at the fiscal policies and how they benefit you.
And to the media at large I put to you the same argument. Ignoring this stark juxtaposition of right and wrong is disingenuous and smacks of cynical ratings/clickbait mongering by keeping the legitimacy of a morally and ethically bankrupt party on life support through framing these oppositions as mere "political differences." These are no longer mere political differences. These are unambiguously right and wrong sides of who gets to live in freedom and who gets to die in oppression.
I know propping up this malfeasance and cancerous status quo of both-sides-ism is more lucrative, but continuing to prop up the side that actively tries to cause real harm to entire swaths of the population in itself violates the journalistic tenet of neutrality. By giving legitimacy to a clearly harmful party by propping up its misogynistic, racist, and LGBTQ-phobic platform as an argument worthy of uncritical display is in itself taking its side because it is a de facto endorsement of those ideals. Yet you continue to do it because holding that side accountable for its lack of humanity would actually aid in forcing change, until one day the differences in the two parties truly would be merely political, and that's not sexy nor dramatic. It's boring as hell. Because from a ratings perspective, safety and equality is exactly that: boring.
That's what it all boils down to though, isn't it? Money. And until we hold each other accountable for putting money ahead of the safety and well-being of our fellow citizens, we will never break free of this cycle.
So you're right, mealy-mouthed authors of The Atlantic; as long as the Republican Party actively tries to harm people and presents a clear and present danger to the civil rights and safety of my fellow humans, I will harbor a deep mistrust for anyone who still props up that party to protect their own pocketbooks. Not just because I am one of the humans threatened by the party they support, but because when it comes to basic human decency, to doing no harm, standing against tyranny and oppression is always the right thing to do, no matter the cost.
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