Bob, like the other members of my husband's family--and by that I mean relatives who share his blood--suffers from Democratic Dementia (DD). In a freakish twist, another one of Mitch's cousins also has Facebook Tourette's, wherein all she can say in her news stream is things like "FUCKING REPUGNICANS!!!" and "OMFG!!!!" and "greedy SOBs." She says this repeatedly, day in and day out. Assorted other family members, all with milder forms of the dreaded illness, support her and agree. She recently wrote, "it's in my blood" and "I was born this way." A desperate cry for help? (It's sad, really, when you stop and think about it, since there is no cure.)
My husband, thank God, escaped this terrible fate and does not share the DD gene. Instead, he is thoughtful, reasoned, and independent. He is able to approach each political candidate on his or her own merits. He is not locked in to certain doom, but free to evaluate, consider and weigh. For that he is shunned by the other family members, not to mention mocked and cursed, or worse. Here is a comment written by his very own nephew on Facebook: "I often tell people that there are two distinct types of Republicans. There are cannibal Republicans and stew meat Republicans. I never understand why the stew meat are so enamored of the cannibals." I wonder which kind he thinks his uncle is?
So although blood may be thicker than water, political affiliation trumps both in the Rouda clan. Thankfully, I am one in name only.
Hey! I resemble that remark... Aunt Andrea! :-)
ReplyDeletePerhaps an explanation will help. Or perhaps not. We'll see.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are broad coalitions of often uncomfortable allies. In the Democratic party union members, racial minorities, environmentalists, and pro-choicers have little in common except that their interests aren't usually in structural conflict with one another.
We see the Republican coalition as a little less comfy. What we see in the Republican coalition is one group that gets rich by eating the other group. You've got the old-style, country-club Republicans who seem to dine fairly regularly on the Dixiecrats who came over after LBJ dissed them with the Civil Rights Act and the Christian conservatives who came over when Reagan turned Roe v. Wade into the wedge issue to end all wedge issues.
Take banking regulation. The Dixiecrats and Christian conservatives are statistically very middle class. Middle class people have NOTHING to gain by allowing banks to use flat out deceptive, abusive, unscrupulous practices in their credit card programs. They are THE people who get hurt by these shenanigans. Middle class people are THE beneficiaries of the CFPB, and they stand (or stood) to have much more control over their own finances, to be treated much more fairly by their financial institutions. Middle class people had nothing to gain and everything to lose simultaneously repealing Glass-Steagall and putting CDS contracts outside the reach of banking regulators.
But the wealthy Republicans who own banks somehow manage to convince the less affluent that protecting middle class families like theirs from abuse and legal tricks and chicanery, or from 400% annual interest rates, or from the economic collapse that ALWAYS happens when banking reserve requirements are allowed to shrink to 30:1 and 40:1 are somehow "unAmerican", "liberal", ploys to "hamstring American business" and turn us into some kind of dystopian Hell. Why on earth would a middle class family object to requiring contracts to be written in larger than 4 pt. type? They are the ones who are being tricked!
From the outside looking in, we see this specific class of very rich Republicans using patriotism and nationalistic or Christian rhetoric to trick people into voting against their own best interests.
Hence the analogy of cannibals and stew meat. Not that I think Republicans actually eat people literally. I'm just saying that the Republican rank and file is chock full of people who consistently support policies that hurt them... and hurt them in ways that have nothing to do with philosophical purity.
blah blah blah
ReplyDeleteIn arguing your side you miss the point of Andrea's blog, as so many others have. Which is the wild hate that runs around whenever I dare to lob in a voice with an opposing view.
Assuming the writer here is Keith, you continue to believe that all republicans are in collusion to take money from 300 million people and give it to 400. While some "uncomfortable allies" may behave that way, I think you patently ignore that most republicans are simply after getting the government out of our hair and promoting free will.
To your credit I have never felt hate from you . . . have felt your humor in fact . . . but the others, it is just atrocious. Silly, childish, unproductive, mean, divisive etc etc. It is amazing to me and makes the whole lot of them seem small minded and closed minded and dumb.
Keith, I too feel you are high above the rest, but still you are not open to another side. You will never hear it from a smarter person than Mitch, yet you cover your ears.
ReplyDeleteBut what about the family thing? You have not addressed that issue at all. My son is now planning on changing his surname legally!
According to the statistical analysis available to me, this particular post is getting a LOT of readers, like five time the normal amount of clicks. Could it be Roudas reading? If so, why no comments besides Keith? No response. No defense. No explanation. It's sad, really.
ReplyDeleteI hear the hate thing. I don't get it. Not the way I would handle the debates. It used to be frustrating in Washington when we would find out that after eviscerating each other on the Senate floor and in interviews, the supposed enemies played tennis together. It is even more frustrating now, I think, that they don't. There probably was something very useful in the concept of being able to vehemently disagree over policy but to still see the rest of what the person has to offer that has nothing to do with policy.
ReplyDeleteSo, with that out of the way...
I don't think Republicans are in collusion to take the wealth from 300 million and give it to 400. I think a lot of Republicans THINK they are voting to get government out of their lives and promote free will when IN FACT what they are voting for... is to take the wealth not just from the 300 million but from their very own pockets... and give it to 400. When I say stew meat I mean Republican victims of other Republicans. I mean Republicans who somehow think they are stirring, and don't realize they are the main course.
After all, when we say "get government out of our lives" what do we really mean? Mostly don't we mean "make it legal for companies to rip us off"? And aren't that big mass of Republicans who think they are voting to keep government out of their lives part of the "us" getting ripped off? They certainly aren't the ones doing the ripping off. They don't have the money or power!
That said, there is also a lot of bad legislation and regulation out there that needs to be fixed. But the problem is in the quality, not the quantity. I can list off several examples. HIPPA is a great one. I don't think the intent of the law was to have every patient of every provider everywhere in the land have to sign a piece of paper saying that they agree not to have their privacy protected by HIPPA as a condition of receiving the service. That turned into just stupid paperwork. But the problem is in the execution. Why should freedom loving Republicans want to allow their medical providers to sell their health information to every mailing list provider, employer, credit rating agency, and scam artist in the nation? How is that better than having government stop that from happening? What do they have to gain? Nothing. In the name of freedom they vote to allow their doctors and their med labs and their insurance companies and the CT scan office down the street profit by selling their private, personal, none-of-anybody-elses-business information for a profit that isn't even shared.
That is what I mean. The whole "government in our lives" story is largely a scam. The government is not heavy in my life other than in protecting me from being abused by others. Why I would prefer to be abused is beyond me.
Keith: You offer another long story that does not touch on the issue (in my post) about family. I am confused.
ReplyDeleteIt does! Right in the first sentences!
ReplyDeleteI was looking for something like: "Yes, it is sad that family members ATTACK their kin because of political differences," or something like that.
ReplyDeleteOh. Well, you should have said so. I agree. It is!
ReplyDelete