Why I Changed Parties (aka What Specter Should Have Written)
mrjimmyneutronIt is a rare occurrence when one can truly say the phrase “That is exactly my point” and mean it, but I proclaim it with gusto, thanks to a piece from Time magazine, Could the Courts Outlaw the Minimum Wage? There has been a rumbling in my soul for years, a movement that has taken me on a journey from being a Young Republican to a RINO (Republican In Name Only), and finally to the point where I can not look at myself in the mirror anymore and accept my official party affiliation. While my break with the GOP will not make the news, I hope that I may reach your hearts and minds, dear readers, and convince you that the present core of Republican politics is cold, corrupt, and morally bankrupt.
Do you remember Congressman Curt Weldon? I do. I worked as a volunteer for his reelection campaign back in the early ‘00s. While my motivation was predominantly to make connections, the fact remains that I was inspired by his speeches, I found him personable and real, and I agreed with the majority of his positions. I felt at the time that the Republican Party represented who I was and wanted to be- optimistic, law abiding, and full of traditional American values. At my day job I worked for a non-profit/blatant pork project located in Malvern, dealing with Chamber of Commerce leaders, business executives, and Chester County commissioners. In other words, I was immersed in Republicanism, with the catchall phrase “preserving our quality of life” drilled into my brain. Add into this the patriotic fervor following 9/11 (which I was not immune to) and I was off and running in Elephant Land, eventually becoming the Treasurer of the Delaware County Young Republicans.
Long story made short, by late summer 2002 the funding for our little pork project was (rightfully) cut, and I was out of a job. After a few dead ends I went into teaching in the one place that would hire a college graduate with no education background- Philly School District. I would work at my long-term substitute assignment in North Philly during the day, and attend graduate classes on the Main Line during the night. There was virtually no connection between the two; the idea of urban education was about as exotic to my professors and classmates as teaching English in Japan.
By the time I turned 30, I had been to cocktail parties in mansions, and tutoring sessions in cockroach infested apartments. I’ve known middle school students who have been to jail, and I’ve known businessmen who probably deserve to be in jail, but will never go. I consider myself to be truly middle class, and I know with absolute clarity which party looks out for my interests, and it is not the Republican Party.
A few recent examples from election season have illustrated the extent to which big money interests control the Republican Party. The expected renewal of tax breaks for those who make over $250K is blatant pandering to the wealthy, who incidentally would have paid much higher taxes on their income during the hallowed Reagan years. The mystery over who is supplying funding for campaign ads provokes Orwellian responses about the nature of transparency and how not revealing information is not the same as being misleading. These cases exemplify politics as usual, and they are significant, but they are not as stinging as the attempts by Senatorial candidates John Raese and Joe Miller of West Virginia and Alaska, respectively, to outlaw the minimum wage.
One would think that while campaigning in West Virginia or Alaska, two states not known for their genteel, white-collar constituencies, it would be best to avoid bringing up ways to lower the paychecks of low-income workers. Apparently, the Tea Party has conjured up enough verbal jujitsu to fool predominately rural voters into believing that government protection of workers is a bad thing. Without resorting to stereotyping (although it probably would work just as well) I think it is safe to say that many of the candidates’ supporters have not considered the nuance of their positions on the minimum wage. Basically, the law, as it stands, ensures that no American worker can be paid an hourly wage under $7.25 and hour, which works out to around $15,000 per year. The Tea Party supported candidates feel that this is too generous.
$15,000 a year, for a full time, American worker, is too generous.
It feels just like eating a greasy fast food burger while lying down in bed, doesn’t it? And yet, this idea has growing support from the political party of American values, the party of opportunity. The party that grants tax-free status to corporations, that initiated bank bailouts, and that has fooled voters into forgetting these inconvenient truths, believes that American citizens, who are trying to work within the system, are being paid an overly generous $15,000 per year for doing work most that almost no one considers desirable. This is beyond duplicitous- it is immoral.
The party that has the support of the “moral majority” (remember Huckabee?) does not care about the poor. The poor in our country are but an inconvenience, and have only themselves to blame; blight is the fault of urban mayors, and an eyesore that one must drive through quickly and guardedly. The middle class are not held in much higher regard, and are a lot closer to being kicked down a notch than brought up. How many millionaires have faced foreclosure? How many CEOs have to (gasp!) send their children to public schools thanks to the downturn? Not many, because the market is rebounding. The rich stay rich, while the rest of us (the other 90%) shuffle on, hoping that our allotted amount trickles down to us.
It’s not a knee jerk reaction, and it’s not due to the liberal media’s subversive influence. I have seen enough of this world to recognize a heart of darkness, and it is the pulse of the Republican Party.
The horror…
Reader Comments (7)
I enjoyed your story about your changing political affiliations. And I absolutely agree that changing the minimum wage is a stupid political argument. But as one of the resident conservatives here on the lunch break, I have to take issue with a lot of the presumptive stereotypes you cite in your blog. So prepare for a good old-fashioned political discourse, which I must thank you for bringing up in this historic election season.
First, the idea that it is only democrats who look out for the middle class is a tired talking point. Surely, at least some people in both parties have the middle class' interests in mind, where they differ are in their philosophies on how to secure the middle class lifestyle. In this cycle, republicans are favoring fiscal responsibility and limited government, as a means of reducing the government's debt, which in the long run will be better for middle class and the country as a whole. The democrats, at least the few who are standing by their party's recent legislative actions, seem to point to taxpayer supported government programs as the way bolster a floundering middle class. Personally, I think most middle class people this year are more attracted to conservative ideas because they still have hope that they can one day be successful if they work hard and are financially responsible, something which the democratically controlled federal government hasn't been setting a good example of. In general, the staunchly democratic supporters seem to be either the wealthy elite who have already made their money, or the poor who have given up hope that they will be wealthy one day.
Broad philosophies aside, you brought up some specific issues in this cycle that I'd like to counter argue. First, is the renewal of tax breaks. It would seem that most people wouldn't object to letting the Bush tax breaks expire on the wealthy. The main point of dissent is just how wealthy is wealthy? I think that in today's America 250K a year for a couple seems more middle class than wealthy. Since 43% of the wealth is found in the top 1% of Americans, we might want to expand our definition of what it means to be in the "middle". The fear of conservatives is that a tax hike set on incomes levels of 250K will hit small businesses hard and hurt job creation for the poor and middle class people you are so concerned about. I don't know where the dividing line is but I agree that we need a tax hike on the very rich to help reduce the deficit and repair some of the country's failing infrastructure.
The next issue is the ridiculous hypocrisy of democrats pointing out that the US Chamber of Commerce takes foreign money and gives it to republicans. This attack is obviously a desperate, confusing smear campaign made by a President who has failed to offer voters or his party a coherent closing argument as to why democrats should stay in power. Not only is the accusation that foreign money goes into the Chamber of Commerce's campaign ad spending unprovable, Democrats take huge political contributions for organizations that take foreign money too! The SEIU is an international union with membership in other countries and the UFCW has admitted to having members who are undocumented workers, in other words, foreign nationals. Combined, these two unions contribute to well over three hundred democrats running for office this cycle. I guess we should just trust that they separate foreign and domestic contributions just like the Chamber of Commerce. Gimme a break!
For a president who campaigned on transparency in government, he and his party have really missed the mark. Obama has instituted 33 czars without Senate approval that answer directly to him. He has surrounded himself with former lobbyists, many from the evil Wall Street banks you claim control the republicans. His handling of the BP oil spill showed a serious lack of leadership; leaving BP to patch the leak on their own doesn't exactly lend itself to transparency during a national environmental disaster. What else? Oh yeah, remember when he promised all healthcare debates would be broadcasted on cspan. Yeah, that didn't happen. Most decisions on that massive piece of unread legislation were made behind closed doors away from the public eye and the minority party's input. Come to think of it, the federal government seems even more secretive now than it did under Bush.
Back to the primary point about protecting the middle class and the minimum wage, I think both parties should be able to find common ground on this issue, rather than use it as a partisan wedge. The minimum wage should definitely stay and probably increase to match the potential threat of inflation. Unfortunately, both parties tend to abuse the working class. Republicans and business owners tend to exploit them for cheap labor, while democrats support greedy unions that pressure workers into joining and contributing portions of their pay to PACs that go back into democratic campaign coffers.
The bottom line is that both democrats and republicans share the blame in allowing the interests of the wealthy to overtake our political system. Both parties allowed the government to be co-opted by Wall St. From the multiple bank bailouts, to auto bailouts, to allowing the fed to flood the economy with billions and billions of excess dollars, we are witnessing largest amount of taxpayer wealth ever to be transferred into the hands of a few private extremely wealthy people. Bush started it and now Obama is happily continuing it, while publicly claiming to be putting the middle class "in the driver's seat" as if all voters need is a trite, simplistic political metaphors and old class warfare stereotypes in order to keep ignoring the truth of what's really going on.
I'll leave you with one more piece of inconvenient truth. President Obama won over 50% of wealthy voters in 2008. And while his approval rating has been in free fall amongst lower and middle class voting blocs, amongst the wealthy he's only down 4%. It seems that about half of rich people vote democrat and the other half vote republican. Aside from what the political ads tell us, the reality is that the rich probably base their political allegiances on a more complex set of factors than simply what's best for their bank accounts. Though the one thing that has remained plain is that the rich have been doing pretty well under both Bush and Obama while the rest of us are being hit with terrible unemployment, a home foreclosure mess, and an ever weakening currency.
I say, no matter what party you sign up for, vote the incumbents out and get some fresh people in their who haven't been corrupted by the system yet.
Both of you guys make powerful arguments supporting strong poltical ideals. I have been trained to believe that Republicans protect the rich and powerful organizations and the Democrats protect the poor and working class, and years of poltical attention has done little to untie that notion.
I am somewhere in the middle as I feel disenchanted with the Democratic party and Obama's actions in the past two years, especially with control of the House and Senate. We should have a universal healthcare bill that limits the higher cost of drugs for our seniors and children. We should have a healthcare insurance option for Americans at a reasonable rate that we can participate in (if WE Want) that provides health care equal to our polticians, outside of our job providing insurance. This was the essential argument for small business job growth and economic growth because a huge burden of cost could be taken from busniess owners and local and state districts to reinvest in new employees and infrastructure. I just wanted a national option that could compete while insuring unemployed, under employed, small busnesses owners and young Americans at a reasonable cost with equal care of state or national employee.
This would compete with large insurance companies, not replace them and I never meant to make a law that everyone would have to take, but one so good that people would consider and bring down costs that are out of control.
The jobs bills might have kept unemployed at 10%, but have not created jobs, other than more people dependent on the federal government, not even the state.
No Child Left Behind Testing and competition without equal funding is still persecuting low income areas and making urban and rural schools districts less desireable places to work and go to school. RTT was a fiasco and destructive to any cooperative system of promoting an equal and improved educational system.
The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still are costing American lives and billions of dollars each day.
Illegal immigration has become, without strict national rules and penalties, so blurry that states have no choice but to make their own rules to protect their way of life.
The Democrats had two years and more with control and yet they are still offering bailouts to wall street and companies who misused American credit system to cheat and steal and destroy our housing market. And nothing has been passed to rectify the situation.
Something stinks coming out of Washington and the Democrats are to blame, not the Republicans this time. I wanted change and believe in creating a society that offers all Americans the opportunity of freedom. But the Democrats are left to try to scare their supporters using old arguments about the Right's agenda of protecting the wealthy.
I do not know who to vote for because I have seen very little change or movement in America in the past two years, only more rhetoric. If the Democrats save any of their jobs, it should be miracle. For me, the Bush and Cheney years poisoned me that I am not ready to trust the elephants, but come two years, I might be willing to drink the water (or tea) of any party that doesn't make me feel like a jackass.
Great lunch and ideas
Excellent points all around!
Neutron, your post read like one of those obnoxiously slanted, misinformed, biased, often baseless attacks against, not for, a party. Your piece leaves me to conclude that since you have fled your party's house, you have opted to turn solely to the Dems; however, you have not provided a lick of reasoning for why they deserve your support. The logic of disproving the opponent's side instead of validating your own has never sat well with me. It is the lesser of two evils philosophy and it is a fascinating reflection of our times that almost all the campaigns are being run this way now. No politician is actually endorsing themselves, they are merely smearing the other side.
For instance, you take the desire of two Republican senators of two states and their opposition to minimum wage and attempt to apply this "immoral" logic to an entire party. This is weak rhetoric. As Caraway points out very accurately, the Democrats have done nothing better than the Republicans in the last two and a half years. And although some would like to argue, like Obama frequently does, that they are merely the victims of Republican mistakes, the same could be made, and has been made about decisions of Clinton. This blame the former party in control logic could honestly be made all the way back to Woodrow Wilson if one so desired.
Politicians looking out for the wealthy and themselves is nothing new, for either side. Caraway is right to point out the flawed archaic 80s view of rich. Geographical realities have to be taken into consideration when applying a federal tax cut or hike. Someone making $250 thousand+ a year in NYC or San Fran with a family is honestly not as much as we would like to think in Philadelphia suburbs. Now, in Central PA, that's a fortune. Also, tax hikes on the legitimately rich members of society are often a waste because the rich are smart with their money and know how to shelter from such taxes, often reducing the revenue from taxes that we would receive from them, thus forcing a hike in taxes for the middle class to yet again carry the water for the poor and the rich.
Either way, I digress and I look forward to the conclusion of what has been one of the most annoying campaign seasons ever. I literally have filled two Acme brown bags with political fliers in under two weeks. And as we continue to lament our lots in life, these same politicians that want our vote are spending more on their campaigns than ever before. $3.7 Billion the last I read! Ridiculous whatever your allegiance!
I have to pretty much echo Patrick's comments here.
1. I can completely sympathize and understand any person abandoing thier political party out of disgust and disillusionment. However, I am of the mindset that both of the parties we are forced to choose from in this country are awful, bloated power structures whose only purpose is to remain in power. Part of me identifies with the capitalistic tendencies of the Republicans but I could never call myself one since they igned themselves with the Christian Right.
2. The tax on the "wealthy" who make over $250K is typical "drag the top down to bring the bottom up" bullsh*t. As PAtrick noted, a family in Arkansas making that is living quite large. Families in NYC, SF, Bucks County, etc do well...but do not necessarily have vacation homes in Aspen.
If I were a Republican, I would want to leave my party for its embrace of the lunacy that fuels the revolution of the Tea Party, a massive couldron of anger fed by very, very wealthy donors (I'll be posting about that after the election). The Republican Party, hiding behind the Tea Party movement like it's a Burnham Wood, trumpets that it knows more about "responsible" government than Obama. Recent history indicates that is an enormous laugh. In my mind, the Tea Party people - especially those motivated by a love of country - are about to be surprised by the more-of-the-same that they will vote into office with such a virulent holler.
I am a Democrat out of a sentimental attachment to the notion that they are the party of the working man, but I know that is not really true. No party working in Washington is, but after watching the conservatives of the last twenty-five years, I know the GOP's foreign and domestic policies have done more harm to our country than good. Things would get better, though, if the people we voted into office found common ground and stopped acting like partisans who needed a Peace Process to get bills passed, judges approved, and projects moving.
Edmonds, good point on my incomplete argument. The truth is, there was nothing in my original post about why I am a Democrat, only reasons why I turned my back on the Republican Party. It was fun and kind of cathartic to point to the heart of darkness of all Republicans, but it also was not terribly productive. I would like to now state my reasons for being pro-Democrat, and to point out a few of the GOP's own frequent logical fallacies.
The Stimulus Package, opposed and now demonized by conservatives, created jobs. Most, if not all, of the construction that we come across, while it can be annoying to drive through, is aided by money derived from the stimulus package. That means more working Americans and an improved infrastructure- a win-win situation. In addition, most, if not all, of the readers on this blog received an additional tax refund/stipend from the stimulus. That is money in our pockets from the government, not trickled down from the wealthy (who, you rightly stated, are too smart with their money to part with it). The Republicans have repeated their Argumentum ad nauseam about the stimulus not working to the point where most of the population has come to believe it- and by the way, where did this lopsided amount of campaign funding for Republican candidates come from, anyway? Just asking...
Compare this forward movement with, for example, NJ Governor Chris Christie's refusal to allocate funding for major transportation upgrades in and out of his state. While NJ is cash strapped, the fact is that projects like the ARC tunnel project would have benefits both short term (lower unemployment) and long term (safer, less congested highways, significantly less damage to the environment, reduction in dependence on oil, etc.) So, instead of doing something that carries both a high price tag and higher potential benefits, the Big Gov. elects to leave things exactly as they have always been- Argumentum ad antiquitatem, anyone?
The Democrats saw a decades long problem that primarily affects the lower classes in health care, and they created a solution. No solution could ever be perfect, but the fact is by 2014 many American citizens who would have been without any realistic health care options at all will be covered, thanks to changes in the health care policy (changes that probably would have taken place even if, say, Mitt Romney had been elected president. They were largely his ideas, after all). Again, compare this to the Republicans idea- overturn the reforms. What, exactly, do they proposed to do instead? Ignore the problems that have lead the US to be ranked practically in the middle of quality and affordability of care for industrialized nations?
The party of NO is great at tying up legislation, but even they couldn't prevent progressive movements like health care reform, the stimulus package, the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, and the end of active combat in Iraq. If elected, we can expect Republicans to resume many of the policies that put our economy in a hole in the first place. Yes, I am blaming the previous administration for our economic problems- to not pay attention to recent history is foolish. It is unrealistic to expect that the restricted movements of a two-year presidential term would be enough to counter close to a decade of failed policies. Economies (and countries) don't change overnight, as much as our more volatile countrymen might expect them to.
Finally, say what you will about elitism in government, at least the Democrats run serious minded candidates. I would love to see Christine O'Donnell, Linda McMahon, Rand Paul, and Ben Quayle working together- on a reality television show. God knows they all provide entertainment, drama, and delicious soundbites on a weekly basis. Are they fit to govern? Or have they, like the talking heads referenced by Martin Roche, merely mastered the art of manipulating the masses through effective and deceptive messaging? The Republicans, recently "highjacked" by their own, do have the numbers to win, and their message is contagious. Do they have what it takes to govern?
The Republicans/Tea Party is going to win a lot of elections; that is inevitable. Their preposterous false promises- that taxes can remain the same or be lowered for all (including the very wealthy), that jobs can be created, and that the deficit can be reduced without any sacrifice from Americans- have convinced the majority that conservatism= change. We are not headed for positive change by turning to the Elephant; we are merely returning to the failed ideas that put us here in the first place.
Here! Here! mrjimmy. I'm fired up for Tuesday. The people party vs. pyscho party.