–Who are the people who vote Republican these days? Why do they hate so much?

Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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I, who used to vote mostly Republican, because I believed the conservatives had a better handle on business and economics, now find myself disagreeing with the conservative movement on almost every major issue:

Treatment of gays: I favor allowing gays to marry (who does it hurt?) and do not feel being gay is an “abomination” or whatever other insults the pious right throws at it. Love is better than hate.

Treatment of immigrants: I favor making U.S. citizenship much easier. I would do a background check for criminality, then let them in. It costs us far more trying to keep them out. (Hello, Arizona) We all are immigrants, and it was much easier back then. Current laws are exclusionary for no reason.

Birth control: I favor abortion rights in the first trimester, and yes, let’s do stem cell research rather than protecting microscopic cells doomed to die, anyway. Or, we can let girls have babies they can’t care for, thereby guaranteeing yet another generation of poverty and crime.

Religion in public venues: Any step toward theocracy, even a tiny step, is a move toward disaster. If you want to pray, close your eyes and pray. God will hear you. Don’t force me to listen to you.

Attitudes about aid to the poor. Recent sneering about “food stamp President” is symptomatic of distaste for people less fortunate. No, the poor are not lazy bums. They are you, but for the grace of God.

Gun control: No more BS. Guns account for most of the murders in America. The 2nd Amendment begins, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . .” I see the guns and the killing, but where is the well regulated Militia to control those guns? The pious right resists any sort of regulation.

Payroll tax cut: FICA should be eliminated, forever. It has no purpose in a Monetarily Sovereign nation. Although most taxes are bad, this may be single worst tax of all. Why is the pious right so resistant to cutting it?

Unemployment insurance: Extend it. What’s the alternative? Let the people starve? Either give them money or give them jobs, but don’t let them die – or riot.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid: Why do we talk about limiting them? They are the crown jewels of a modern society. Our Monetarily Sovereign government can afford to pay for these services and the people can’t. I favor free Medicare for every U.S. resident (not just citizen) and untaxed Social Security.

The wealth gap: Cut social services and don’t tax the wealthy? Really? Well, I do agree with not taxing the wealthy – or the un-wealthy, for that matter — but we should expand social services.

Campaign contribution limits: That right wing Supreme Court is simply nuts about the rich. Simply nuts.

Preemptive war: Previous wars belonged to the Democrats, but more recently the Republicans have taken over. George Bush was a lying fool, who cost thousands of Americans their lives and limbs, all in the name of right wing “patriotism” (and to show his father something). What is there about the right that they keep waving the flag?

The environment: We need it; our kids need it. I favor strict pollution controls along with federal aid to affected industries and more federal support for energy research.

I was a conservative, but if all of the above makes me a liberal, so be it. Come to think of it, every great social initiative was passed by liberals. The conservatives have, of late, become the party of hate. Who are these people who vote Republican these days? Why are they so filled with venom?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

4 thoughts on “–Who are the people who vote Republican these days? Why do they hate so much?

  1. Rodger — We have become a society of meanness and hatred for all those different or less fortunate. I think the increasing popularity of Ayn Rand’s thesis has had a major influence on this. In addition, in order to justify using an unemployment buffer stock to suppress wages we have to demonize those who depend on the government for support. Lazy bums! Oh, right, it’s a utilitarian decision to value leisure and low/no pay higher than productive work. The idea that 16 million people don’t want to work is beyond ridiculous.

    I consider your views, which I share, to be progressive, as they promote our progress to a more egalitarian society. I try not to use “liberal” anymore because of the use of “neoliberal” to describe the current destructive economic theories and policies.

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  2. another good post!!

    i was never a conservative. but i can’t say i was a liberal either, b/c i’ve always thought of liberals as more or less “centrists,” and since i’ve had a love affair with socialism (not quite straight on what that is anymore) i guess that would have made me a leftist for most of my life, but as i’ve gotten older, i’ve come to have a problem with the whole identity politics thing that’s so prevalent on the left, though i reject the “right-wing” rejection of it.

    also, my discovery of MMT (and the Zeitgeist Movement) has totally changed my thinking about economics and the monetary system and now i have come to reject the right-left, liberal-conservative divide as just a distraction, or political theater.

    i think i heard in history class that George Washington thought that political parties would be a bad thing for america. if that was true, then, boy, was he right!! b/c when you start thinking in terms of parties, or, by extension, right/left, liberal/conservative, then that becomes your identity, and then you cease being open to whatever “works,” no matter how rational, logical, or “common-sense” it might be.

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  3. It’s easy enough to answer your question.

    The reason Republicans hate so much is Tribalism.

    It was an unintended side-effect of creating Fox News.

    Jude Wanninski had the idea of GOP TV, their very own network they could use to motivate the flock.

    Rupert Murdoch spent $100 Million a year for five years to create Fox News before it became profitable.

    To DO that, Fox News had to build a following of haters. People who would tune in because they could only get their daily fix of hate and suspicion from Fox.

    That’s what took five years.

    And unfortunately that population of ditto-heads will believe any lie Fox tells them. So the rantings of Rush and Hannity made the problem worse.

    Now we have these Tea Party loons, that believe Ronald Reagan’s “government is the problem” lie.

    They talk like Patriots, but want to tear down the very Government our forebears invented. And they don’t seem to realize that you can’t run a government without taxes.

    The hate and rage have grown to the point that the only candidates for the 2012 Republican Nomination are the ones that appeal to the ditto-heads.

    Buddy Roemer? Never got a second look. Never got a FIRST look except by Democrats.

    Bob Dole wouldn’t have made the top five. Ronald Reagan himself wouldn’t have made the top ten !

    And thus, the snake has stung itself.

    Fox is backpedaling, but I think it’s too late.

    The GOP is going the way of the Whig Party.

    And I couldn’t be more happy about it.

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  4. I, for one, am not at all happy to see what has become of the Republicans. Taken over by extremists, they are nowhere near the Republicans that provided a good right to the Democrats’ left. To have one of the parties blend religion with politics is distressing, and reminds me of what has happened to the Muslim nations of the Mideast.

    We very much need a moderate right and a moderate left instead of the extreme right and the moderate right we have now.

    Oh, and yes you can run a government without taxes. That is the basis of Monetary Sovereignty.

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