WTF, GOP?
I try not to get too political and shit because I know we're all over the place as a group and opinions are like assholes etc, but this certainly seemed to nicely sum up the current state of mind of the Republican Party of the United States.
It seems so painfully obvious to me why the GOP is failing so spectacularly. Some years ago someone decided it'd be awesome for a political party in a secular nation to crawl into a sleazy pay-by-the-hour hotel bed with the most toxic faction of the already-disgustingly-toxic evangelical faction of Christianity. That worked for a while, but I think we're collectively getting fed up with the increasing polarization that's produced and are heading toward secularism again. The pendulum's swung back, and the GOP's response is "no no, let's not change a thing, let's just repackage the hate and venom to look prettier to trick people." Not "let's change the policies," but "let's change how we talk about those policies."
I'm not voting for any Republicans while they're still, as a party, convinced that I don't deserve the right to consent to any and all uses of my body, that "rape" is a term that requires argument to define, that non-white people are too stupid to vote correctly, or that gay people are less than human. These are basic human rights concepts. The economy matters, so does foreign policy, so do a lot of things, sure, but if I sell my essential liberties for a little security, I deserve neither.
So it's nice that at least a tiny number of Republican leaders are starting to re-think their once-sacred platforms. We need them to stop being zealots and fanatics, and since the bulk of them are hypocrites who are clearly only acting that way because they think it gets them votes and power, that shouldn't be as hard as it is. If you're a sane Republican, please make sure to drop your congresscritter a note to tell him or her (let's face it though, probably "him") so. We sane people don't speak out enough, so the insane wackos are dominating the conversation politically. Your note won't change anything immediately, but you'll go in a bucket of "sane Republicans." And once that bucket fills enough, we'll start seeing a change in GOP tactics.
This is all I'm going to write about politics for a while. Just had to get that off my chest.
It seems so painfully obvious to me why the GOP is failing so spectacularly. Some years ago someone decided it'd be awesome for a political party in a secular nation to crawl into a sleazy pay-by-the-hour hotel bed with the most toxic faction of the already-disgustingly-toxic evangelical faction of Christianity. That worked for a while, but I think we're collectively getting fed up with the increasing polarization that's produced and are heading toward secularism again. The pendulum's swung back, and the GOP's response is "no no, let's not change a thing, let's just repackage the hate and venom to look prettier to trick people." Not "let's change the policies," but "let's change how we talk about those policies."
I'm not voting for any Republicans while they're still, as a party, convinced that I don't deserve the right to consent to any and all uses of my body, that "rape" is a term that requires argument to define, that non-white people are too stupid to vote correctly, or that gay people are less than human. These are basic human rights concepts. The economy matters, so does foreign policy, so do a lot of things, sure, but if I sell my essential liberties for a little security, I deserve neither.
So it's nice that at least a tiny number of Republican leaders are starting to re-think their once-sacred platforms. We need them to stop being zealots and fanatics, and since the bulk of them are hypocrites who are clearly only acting that way because they think it gets them votes and power, that shouldn't be as hard as it is. If you're a sane Republican, please make sure to drop your congresscritter a note to tell him or her (let's face it though, probably "him") so. We sane people don't speak out enough, so the insane wackos are dominating the conversation politically. Your note won't change anything immediately, but you'll go in a bucket of "sane Republicans." And once that bucket fills enough, we'll start seeing a change in GOP tactics.
This is all I'm going to write about politics for a while. Just had to get that off my chest.