Hi Republican party. Middle aged white guy in the top 10% here. How are you? I'm fine. Managed to keep my family fed and warm, plus get the tree off my roof, the last 2 weeks as my area recovers from the double blow of Sandy and the Nor'Easter, without requiring government help. Thought that you would like that as it is kinda boot-strappy. I even helped create a few jobs by hiring a traveling tree service to help me get at some high tree branches I couldn't reach, plus remove the rest of the tree that hit the roof (chainsaws and 45 year old Jewish NYC area lawyers just don't go together as I'm sure you'd agree). Mom's doing well, but you wouldn't like her now as, after a full life of working hard, raising a family and teaching children, she is part of the 47% (though I don't recall her voting for Democrats in presidential elections) in a nursing home sucking down that government juice, but thanks for asking. Anyway, I digress. I'd like to explain why I didn't vote for you last week and, at this rate, may not vote for you again, at least on the national level, and it is not because I want "gifts."
Traditionally, especially as I am Jewish and a Middle East war seems imminent (we all know you love Israel, while the Democrats are a little more reserved), I should be in your base, except I am probably a little too progressive (I'd say liberal in the traditional sense since that means open minded but I know you've twisted that word just as conservatism as been twisted) for you these days. I'm educated, pretty tolerant of others, don't care what people don't do in their bedrooms or who they want to marry, agree there should be less abortions but feel that should be a personal or medical decision, don't have a problem conserving for tomorrow while keeping the family's debt limited to our mortgage, and don't mind paying taxes to invest in our country's infrastructure. I think that used to be called a Rockefeller Republican or maybe even a Regan Democrat. I don't know. What I do know is that not only did I not vote for your presidential candidate, but I didn't vote for my local Senate and Congressional Republican candidates because your radical right and financial overlords scare the heck out of me and what they would mean for this nation's future.
I know you are trying to broaden your base without resorting to "gifts" but here's the thing, I don't consider the social security and medicare I will receive at the end of my working life a gift. I don't consider new and improved schools to be a gift. I don't consider improved infrastructure to be a gift. And while, technically, my taxes being used to help those less fortunate then myself can be called a gift, I am thankful I am not in a position to need that gift, whether it is food stamps to keep my children fed or FEMA grants to help me rebuild my life. I consider all that, and more, part of what makes this a civilized nation.Maybe I am just too stupid to understand how torpedoing our fragile economy while
worsening the plight of a huge majority of the country to further
fatten the wallets of the rich so they can continue to outsource jobs and invest their money overseas is good for America. Or maybe I am not as dumb as you think the majority of the population are in rejecting such a divisive Presidential candidate who, through his words before and after the election, demonstrate he really held the 99% in disdain (and was an emptier suit than W).
Even though I am not a member of "those groups" you so despise, I don't mind paying taxes to pay for new schools, transportation projects, utilities etc for my grandchildren to live just as I have relied on all my grandparents generation built for me. I consider those "gifts" that I paid for with my payroll taxes since I was 16 to be paying me my money back, whether I see all of it or I don't (and I really, really hope I do see all of it as I'd like to die quietly in my sleep in old age like my great-uncle, not screaming in fear like the passengers in his out of control car). And I am fine if some of that goes to a disabled widow to help her raise her underage children because, well, that's how I think the richest nation to ever walk this earth should roll.
But going back to the broadening of your base, ain't going to happen until you stop being slaves to those who care more about a bunch of cells that could potentially be human life inside of a woman's body over what happens if and when those cells become a human and who believe men should be stoned when sleeping with a man because you misinterpreted that part of the bible that approves drug legalization and gay marriage (think about what I just wrote for a few seconds). Not saying there isn't room at the table for those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for whatever reason, but until you lock your radical righthwads in the damn closets the way Democrats locked their looney, truly liberal associates, you aren't going anywhere near 1600 again. And just picking a token woman for a leadership post to demonstrate your openness is not enough, especially as your leaders imply that there was voter fraud because blacks voted. You have to mean it in your hearts.
There are other things too that bother me. I could mention that, as you continue to politicize the Benghazi attacks, that 9/11 happened on your watch, plus several other attacks on diplomatic sites (including a certain embassy in Lebanon that President Reagan pulled marines out of after a suicide attack killed hundred of Americans). I know its politics etc, but not everything is a conspiracy (though I agree there is more to the Petraeus affair than what we have been told as of this writing). If you want to win again, not only do you have to stop looking backwards at ideas that worked 30 years ago, but you also need to stop making every statement a passive-aggressive attack on Democrats. Half the country agrees with them.
But how can I explain all this to those who believe the Republican Governor of NJ saying nice things about President Obama for helping his state recover from Hurricane Sandy, caused Mitt Romney to lose the election. Heaven forbid, a leader serving those who voted for him first. I'm sure the loss had nothing to do with a candidate so out of touch that he thought cuts in the capital gains tax would help the middle class when they sold all their stocks. What stocks?! My wife and I make well more then $150,000 combined, our only stocks are in our 401(k) accounts and in the college education cuts we have set up for our children -- if we don't have enough disposable income for stocks, how does a family making just $60,000 have enough to worry paying taxes on dividends or capital gains (the tax on our savings, which would have been cut, is miniscule thanks to low interest rates). Don't any of you watch something other than Fox News?
And, going back to my mother, if you ever saw her medical bills from her nursing home, you'd see that her medicaid payments to supplement her social security and my parents' pensions, were not gifts, but a lifeline in return for her decades of hard work (now if you want to argue that limiting medicare/medicaid payments to grants will force nursing homes etc to lower their prices, I'm listening, but I don't trust the free market that has you where they want you as much as you). And I am not going to get into the fiscal cliff you want to throw the country over because a few of your friends, who will be rich no matter, don't want to pay more taxes unless the entire middle class, already reeling from four decades of your wealth consolidation programs, givers even more of the few crumbs they have left (can't leave the serfs with anything that might look like savings now can we?). As long as your opening bargaining position is to hold a gun to the country's head while telling the other side "no and no discussion until you do what we say," there is no point.
So, in conclusion, GROW UP! Stop blaming others for your failures. People don't vote for you because they don't like what you say, don't like what is in your hearts, worry that the increasing concentration of wealth is bad for a republic and a whole host of other concerns. We are individuals making up a nation of one, not a nation making individuals of 300 million (yeah, that got away from me too, sorry). No matter how much we adore individualism, we all need each other to
some extent. Not many of us live on small family farms anymore, with
fewer every year. This isn't the 18th or even the per-industrial 19th century where Americans could live easily enough by themselves, off the grid, without any help from neighbors (assuming the army kept the Indians away and local law kept the bandits at bay). This is the 21st century. Maybe you should remember that.
Signed, Moderate, but conservative, independent white guy
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