So I see this image from “We Love Donald J. Trump” on a friend’s page… It’s a mass of negative generalizations about the Democrat party and positive generalizations about the Republican party. I’m not going to post my response on my friend’s page because I’m going to post it here, where I’m free to have here what I want to have here.
It’s highly generalized, which makes it inaccurate. The “lower taxes” item considered in the Republican’s favor, for example, means more deficit spending, which is essentially taxing your children so you can party today. The GOP-associated “Small government” is more words than actual action. The reality is that a true small government would also mean significant dismantling of the military along with medicare and medicaid. I don’t know of many politicians of either party willing to reduce those things to the point where we would have a true pre-1900 sort of small government.
At the same time, I don’t know anyone that’s pro-abortion, which is used to label the Democrats. There are people who support allowing the freedom of choice, so it’s just as easy to say that Republicans are anti-freedom, if we use the same inaccurate generalization.
Wanting to make sure that police work is done accurately, fairly, and with respect to our Constitutional rights doesn’t make a person anti-police (which is pinned on the Democrats), and wanting immigration reform doesn’t make a person anti-ICE (also pinned on Democrats), or for open borders and/or illegal immigration (yes, also used to tag the Dems). Going with inaccurate generalizations would paint all Republicans as closet Nazis, just waiting for a police state and concentration camps. That’s as ludicrous as some of the generalizations being made here.
Point being that, yes, there are differences between the major political parties after several decades of them being pretty much the same. But a person is not a demon simply for making a conscientious choice to support one party or another. Language that demonizes the opposition only makes it easier for the group doing the demonizing to itself become more extreme in its views.