9 Comments

Agree this is better said on Substack than Twitter. I’m a raging centrist and have voted R in the not so recent past, but as far as The House and The Senate go I feel our democracy is at risk if the current breed of Rs take control. Fareed Zakaria interviewed Bill Maher on CNN360 today and I remembered what I love about him. He said that the younger aged non college grads will vote R because they don’t know what’s at risk as they never learned civics or history in high school. Who do we blame for that?

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Everything is wokeness's fault!

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Well said, HistoryBoomer!

Like you, in previous elections, voting Red would not have been a serious question for me. However, the recent slate of election denialism in my state, combined with a gradual softening of my positions, has led me to vote a very mixed ballot, with a Libertarian, a few Democrats and Republicans, and a bunch of protest no-votes. I tend to lean conservative fiscally and view inflation as possibly the most serious economic issue right now, and one of the 5 or so most serious overall. My family and I are still fairly well off, but we're lucky. There is, indeed, a crime issue, and there are a number of trends in some areas of the Democratic party that I don't like (i.e. vilification of police, creating racial affinity groups, viewing America as a fundamentally racist country, etc), but right now, I'm not nearly as concerned about that as I am about the Republican responses to them. I feel concerns over wokeism in schools are, at least in my state, a bit over-hyped, and I believe woke is losing definitional clarity as people use it to refer to "whatever I don't like" - I also think a ban on CRT would be going a bit too far as I feel ideas need to be in the classroom to be explored and critically analyzed from both sides via both lecture materials and open discussion. I also dislike Trump's character more than I did in 2020 and no longer subscribe to the idea of sucking it up and voting for the least bad option.

From an ethical perspective, I am pro-life; that said, I think some quarters of the Republican party have been far too judgmental of individuals who choose to get an abortion. I feel that the single best option for avoiding abortion is the advancement of, and lowering of barriers to, birth control. I'm also far less interested in the legality of abortion than I am in the ethics of it, and while I think those legal decisions should be left up to the state, some of the pro-life laws I see being proposed leave me very concerned. I also dislike the Texas Heartbeat bill due to its method of enforcement.

I support increased psychological involvement in police or 911 calls and I would also support diverting some funds from police to mental health services (or better yet, baking in some funding for cooperative psychologist-police programs in police budgets). I have been told that this is what is meant by "defunding the police", but I'm going to get more info about that. I'm for owning a firearm, but I feel that if you do have one, you (or someone around you) should have self-defense training and should only be using it as a last resort. I would also be for red flag laws, restricting access to firearms for those diagnosed with a psychological condition, and registration, provided the process was quick and efficient.

I'm deeply concerned about the way that the media (especially social media) promotes conflict, overblown, mean, or false statements for clicks, and I think it has lead to reduced debate, discussion, and reasonable dialogue from both sides. There's an air of self-righteousness and hypocrisy going around in some corners that I don't like, and while things did get more contentious during Bush's and Obama's presidencies, I think Trump accelerated and exacerbated that. The result was a huge pushback from the left, and since every force has an equal and opposite reaction, pushback from the right followed and things became incredibly toxic, which is why almost everyone I know my age is exhausted and refuses to follow mainstream media anymore. That's why I voted the way I did and why I'm not going to vote for Trump should he run in 2024.

Anyways, I don't really know where I was going with this - I guess you just inspired me to talk about why I voted the way I did lol. Sorry for the rant and God bless!

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Glad I inspired you!

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You wrote that bit about walking a cat on a leash just to see if I'm still reading your essays, didn't you!

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Bingo!

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This almost makes me want to write my own

Superb work sir, I truly appreciate the fact you are taking the time to write out an opinion, back it up, and not be hyperbolic. It’s rare

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Thank you! I don't think I have much chance of convincing anyone, but I know yelling at them doesn't work.

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Just getting to this now. Excellent stuff, Carl. I've seen too many people online get caught in that red-pill/audience capture feedback loop where they end up voting GOP solely because they hate wokeness, regardless of whatever other liberal beliefs they hold.

But you're sticking to your guns, weighing the pros and cons, and making an intellectual choice rather than an emotional choice. Good on you.

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