This is a revision of something I recently wrote on the Daily Kos website, which is a website that publishes largely Democratic/progressive posts on current politics, and then posted to Facebook, where, because it generated a lot of interesting discussion, I am now posting here. Anyway, here is what 1st wrote on Daily Kos.

My father was a good man. He was born in NJ in 1929, and passed away from a stroke in 1992, and was living in Florida at the time. My dad was a young guy, in his early 20s, when he served his country in uniform in the Korean War And while he didn't always understand the social and cultural changes taking place in this country in the 1960s and 70s, when I was a kid, my dad was a good man, who tried, ultimately, to understand the world, particularly as it was explained to him by his three kids.


And while my dad - a Democrat to the very end - was a bit more conservative than his three kids, he would likely be disgusted by a the Tea Party and all of their stupidity. My dad also happened to have lived in the district where this piece of right wing thuggery occurred recently.

So when I saw this, I immediately thought of my dad and my visits to Florida to visit with him. I miss him and I wish he were still around. I'd also really like to hear his take on this.

Anyway, there is something of a disconnect between myself and some of my friends and relatives when it comes to politics and it is something that, I must admit, I have a very hard time understanding. It is very hard for me to understand how people who, like me, grew up not living in a mansion and flying off on a family private jet to an exotic vacation but rather with blue collar roots, can support Republicanism, that is, Republican party candidates, Republican rhetorical statements, and Republican media, like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Fox News. I can't, for the life of me, see how people - who I see as decent, smart, and ultimately, fair-minded - can get behind this. Is it a dissatisfaction with Obama, the Democrats, and the political status quo? I am not entirely satisfied with these things, though I do think that Obama is trying to do his best. Is it religion, or specifically Christianity? If so, I too was raised with a pretty authoritarian version of Christianity, but in spite of this, I never quite saw how Jesus Christ supported violence, free market libertarian capitalism, war and torture, or the hatred of gays. Christianity, like all religions, can easily become distorted and used, as Marx said, as a sort of opium of the masses.


Anyway, I don't think that I could ever support the Republican Party because as far as I can tell the Republican Party doesn't support me or the things - fairness and equality, tolerance for difference, the rights of workers and consumers, separation of church and state, protecting the environment - that I think are important. The GOP as far as I can see has given us cultural warfare in an alliance with the Religious Right and with social conservatives who seem to want to take us back to the 1800s. And they have given us class warfare in an alliance with big banks, investment banks, and corporations (though admittedly, a few too many Democrats have also sought out this alliance, which is why some of their base has grown a bit dejected). The GOP has also played the race card, starting back when I was much younger and Richard Nixon began recruiting in 1968 Southern Dixiecrats into the Republican Party, and then continuing with Ronald Reagan and his code words ("states rights," "welfare queen") and then Willie Horton, Jesse Helms. and most recently the Tea Party and its candidates appealing to xenophobia and Islamophobia. Of course, no one ever wants to admit to their own complicity with racism. Finally, the Republicans also pretty much stood and cheered as Bush and Cheney led us into a costly and illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was accompanied by torture and indefinite detentions of people who were presumed guilty before being proven guilty; and during this time, here on the domestic front, Bush engaged in a policy of secret, illegal domestic surveillance; where were the Tea Party protesters, with their stated concerns about obeying the Constitution, when the previous administration was tearing the Constitution to shreds?


That said, and again, acknowledging that everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, with friends/loved ones who express political views that are the opposite of mine and when they do so in direct response to me expressing my views, my response is to try, via dialogue, to arrive at mutual understanding. Because, I really do believe that there are decent people on all sides of the political spectrum and that we are all in this together. I won't pretend to respect the political party that you support, because I don't respect it, but I can respect and care about those to whom I am connected.