Why Do Republicans Hate... Everyone?
Except for the people they should hate.
I remember it like it was yesterday — Donald Trump gliding down an escalator to a group of people paid to pretend to be his supporters, and his message was so simple and racist that it was hard to take seriously in any capacity:
I didn’t expect it to work, but he was running as a Republican, and the Republican Party is comprised of three different archetypes of people: Rich people who hate poor people. Poor white people who are taught to hate poor people who aren’t white, and Christians who would hate Jesus Christ if they ever met him in a contemporary sense. They had a coalition; a coalition of clowns, but a coalition none the less.
Despite this, I don’t hate the average Republican. I understand there is legitimacy to their gripes. The class angst fueling the rise of Donald Trump and every other soulless right winger reading a teleprompter is as real as it is misdirected.
The poor, working and middle class in America are fucked, and they know that they’re fucked. They just don’t know why they’re fucked. They’re fucked because the United States isn’t run like a country, it’s run like a business. It doesn’t matter what president or what political party is in power, they don’t actually run the country. Presidents aren’t heads of state anymore. They’re the heads of a glorified HR Department for the companies that fund their campaigns.
Republicans understand that much of America is overworked and under-compensated for their labor, and there is a lingering nostalgia for a time when someone working in a factory could buy a home and support a family of four. So, naturally, they exploit this.
What Republicans voters don’t seem to understand is that this prosperity wasn’t the result of minorities being oppressed, Christianity reigning supreme over other religions, or homosexuals hiding in shadows, it was the result of adequate compensation for work, affordable education, accessible healthcare and a government that was somewhat responsive to the demands of their respective constituencies.
Even if Latin American immigration into the United States completely halted, and every single undocumented immigrant was deported, the economic desperation facing everyday Americans wouldn’t get better, it’d likely get worse as the prices for many domestically-produced goods and services would rise.
Make American Great Again is a great slogan, but let’s dig into the realities of American prosperity and why it appears to slipping away.
Tax Rate:
In 1950, the top marginal tax rate was 91%, today it’s 37%. That means top earners only pay 37% of their income, and that’s without tax loopholes to bring their effect tax rate lower. This means the government has less money to spend on social services and other civic necessities like infrastructure.
Campaign Finance:
In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people and that they are allowed to spend as much as they independently want on the political process as long as the money isn’t given directly to a politician. The outcome of Citizens United vs. FEC has altered the course of American politics as billions of dollar are spent advertising candidates that are against the public’s best interest.
Education:
Up until the 1960s, college in America was essentially free or very close to it. This all changed when Ronald Reagan cut funding to the University of California system. Several other states followed California’s lead. Fast forward to today, and not a single state in the union has adequate public funding for higher education. This gap in funding was filled by students loans, leading to a $1.6 trillion dollars dragging down people for committing the crime of trying to get an education.
Healthcare:
In every other industrialized nation in the world, healthcare is universal. It’s a right of citizenship. In the United States, it’s privatized. Which means healthcare in the United States is a based upon a for-profit model. This pro-corporate, right wing approach to medicine is why Americans pay 4x as much as comparable nations, and despite spending the most on healthcare, we rank 37th in world for healthcare, hovering near Cuba — a developing socialist country facing the economic limitations of a US embargo.
There are people behind the problems, but they’re not immigrants sneaking across the Mexican border. They’re not trans people sneaking estrogen into your son’s water bottle at soccer practice in an attempt to destroy the nuclear family, and they’re black people rightfully demanding police stop killing them. The people behind the problem are wealthy Americans with connections to Ivy League Universities, multinational corporations and politicians who will do anything for a campaign contribution.
Division, for the most part, is for dumbasses. Racial divisions are dumb, gender divisions are dumb, religious divisions are dumb, sexual divisions are dumb and quite frankly none of your business unless it’s your own sex life.
There’s only one division that’s real. The class division. There’s the rich, and then there’s everyone else.
And chances are, you’re everyone else. Start fucking acting like it. Save your hatred for who actually deserves it.
I'm really loving your blunt and raw writing style on this platform. I wish more people in the world of journalism and current events could write like you.