"They told me if I voted for Goldwater in 1964," William F. Buckley, Jr. allegedly (but not verifiably) once said, "that we'd have more war and higher prices. Well, I did, and we do."
In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, supporters of Donald Trump delivered similar dire predictions about voting for Kamala Harris.
And in the aftermath? The last two words of the apocryphal Buckley quote ring true as well.
For some reason, those who still support Trump seem to think that "but Kamala! If SHE'D won, we'd have had [insert list of bad things that have happened since anyway here]!" is some kind of sick burn on those who preferred the empty pantsuit to the senile reality TV star.
Personally, I see the whole situation neither as an excuse for Trump's failures nor a sign that Harris should have won the job, but rather as a demonstration that the "D" or "R" next to a candidate's name is entirely about marketing.
When it comes to substance, those parties and the politicians affiliated with them are pretty much peas in a pod.
In fact, the "Republican" and "Democrat" labels aren't even really separate brands so much as "regular" vs. "zero-sugar" variants of the same product.
I say that with my doctor's advice on diet for type 2 diabetics in mind:
"Diet" soda, she tells me, actually produces similar blood glucose spikes to those one gets from "regular" soda ("pop" to some of you up north).
Her advice: Give up soda altogether. It's just generally bad for you.
While I haven't taken that advice (give me Diet Dr. Pepper or give me death!), I suspect it's good advice.
The problem really does analogize well -- political government as soda.
Sugar or no sugar, cola versus lemon-lime, the name on the label, etc. aren't the problem. The problem is the product TYPE, not the specific variant.
If you vote Democrat, you're going to get more government spending, more foreign wars, more domestic surveillance, incarceration, and suppression of dissent, etc.
If you vote Republican, you're going to get more government spending, more foreign wars, more domestic surveillance, incarceration, and suppression of dissent, etc.
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