He’s a father of a 28-year-old son and he’s hurting. A retired police officer, he proudly voted for Donald Trump every time he ran and never hid his political beliefs from his family. “My son and his wife say that since I’m a fan of Trump they’re no fan of mine and cut me off,” he said. “Now I can’t see my only grandchild who I was so close to. It’s crazy and it’s tragic.”
It’s also increasingly common. The 2024 election spatchcocked the nation, widening a rift that was exposed in 2016 and put in an even sharper gulf four years later. Now, the hyper-partisan politics in the shadow of the 2024 election is breaking the bonds of families to a greater extent than ever before.
Assuming this is a good faith argument, I’ll throw in: Some thoughtful, leftist commentary claims that the Democrats and the Republicans are fundamentally the same behind the scenes, with identity politics as the window dressing to distinguish them, and keep the lower classes divided.
Well, look at what we have here: Identity politics successfully dividing the lower classes. The two parties do differ quite a bit in some ways, and the window dressing is causing the estrangement.
It’s arguable, but they use the rhetoric because it works on their supporters.
Yeah, but I don’t care about their rhetoric. I care about how they govern, and in that respect there’s no difference between the GOP and the Dems.
How do they differ in any way besides rhetoric?
In the most important way of all by far. Republicans always do gigantic tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Dems always raise taxes on the rich and/or corporations. All 3 of the most recent Dem presidents accomplished the latter.
Why are taxation rates the most important thing to pay attention to? Because wealth inequality is related to and driving almost all of our other problems. If someone payed attention only to tax rates on the wealthy being cut/increased then they would understand 95% of politics.
