I’ve been watching the presidential race for a long time now. It has probably sent my blood pressure up ten points and caused my digestion to run amok. I am a shameless liberal Democrat. Matter of fact, I’m proud of it. So you can imagine that when the Republican National Convention was on last week, there was steam coming out of my ears.
Having said all that, I think it’s time I took a more relaxed approach. After all, I only have one little vote among some 250 million, so it’s the old drop-in-the-bucket analogy, but in this case, it’s more like a drop in the ocean. I am approaching the point where I have to accept that I am powerless over the Republican party.
As has been pointed out, Republicans are scrupulously organized. Democrats, by nature, tend to be people like me – dreamers, artists, people who dabble in the “grey” areas of life, and/or, people who simply keep their nose to the grindstone and think of politics as someone else’s purview.
Republicans are religious. Democrats are spiritual. If Republicans are more like hard-boiled eggs, carefully separating the yolk from the white, Democrats are more like scrambles, where white and yolk are indistinguishable, and frequently mixed in with spices and cheese and God-knows-what. Republicans think that’s disgusting. Democrats think it’s yummy.
I wonder if there’s any truth to the hypothesis that the brains of Democrats and Republicans are different. I have often wondered if maybe the two parties were the natural result of ancestry from different planets.
Then I had an “aha moment” the other day. It occurred to me that most of the people I know who are die-hard Democrats are people who are relative newcomers to this country. They might be first, second or third-generation Americans; whereas the die-hard Republicans tend to be folks who can trace their roots back to the Mayflower. (Now, this is a BIG generality, so there are going to be lots of exceptions of course). But the overall philosophy of the Democratic party seems to be more old-world in nature. The most striking difference seems to be the view of government as a benevolent force. That’s why they push for Social Security and health care reform. The Republicans generally have an extreme mistrust of government and see it as a necessary evil. Well, judging by recent history – they do have a point.
(Sigh). It’s no use. When I really start thinking, I get all muddled up. Better to lower the shades, cut off the newspaper, watch only Fox news, or better yet, no news, and see what happens. Go cast my measly one vote. Hope for the best.
Maybe I’ll turn into an Independent.
1 Comment
Jack
That egg, cheese, spices and God knows what else, scramble sounds good.
I think I’ll go make breakfast.
Nice writing.
We’re all misfits. Thank goodness.
ps. Maybe this would help with the paragraphs http://www.extension.iastate.edu/HTML/CLASS/pbr.html for a paragraph break. For some reason the paragraphs have [if !supportEmptyParas] [endif] between them.