People forget that the party and its shenanigans don’t always equal the people that vote Republican.

Identity politics exist. And it is no more a sign of insanity when the person is republican than when they’re democrat or libertarian, or tory or labour, or whatever. We could all sit around and argue about how stupid it does or doesn’t make someone, but there are a shit ton of people that will vote for their party solely because they’ve always voted that way, and likely their parents and possibly grandparents did too.

Again, if that’s insanity, then it applies equally to anyone voting a given party for that reason.

Then you’ve got single issue voters. While I kinda err on that being purely stupid personally, it’s really more emotionally driven voting than insanity (which is an exaggeration of the term, or for crazy, for this whole thing to begin with).

With Republicans, there’s two huge issues that drive those voters, abortion and firearms. The democrats, firearms tends to be more important as an issue across the party than it does republicans, whose single issue voters aren’t necessarily all voting for that single issue. But with democrats, when they’re single issue, that’s what it tends to be. Not so with abortion since that gets included in other rights support rather than being a driver of voting dem despite having other beliefs that align with other parties/ideologies

Again while I think it’s dumber than dammit, it isn’t ignorance, evil, or craziness to vote on a single issue. To the contrary, if one is going to vote based on emotional drive, might as well vote single issue because at least that’s going to mean the person is paying attention and voting their conscience.

This is separate from any discussion about whether or not a given view of those issues is better or worse, and my opinion on those issues isn’t involved either. This is all about whether or not voting for a party is a sign of something wrong with a person inherently.

I’ll say this much, as someone that’s not registered for either party, and has beliefs farther left than either, I’m an outsider looking in too. But I’m an outsider that’s a bicycle neighbor, friend, or family member of people that are registered to one of the two viable parties, as well as alternate parties.

From that perspective, I see as much identity driven ranting online and off from every US party, excepting the green party. Republicans, democrats, libertarians, and even the socialist party will parrot party talking points without even understanding them, or being willing to gain understanding of them. None of them are excluded from debating a point without devolving into “I’m right, you’re wrong, stfu” at some point, though there’s also segments of each party that are nicer and go to “agree to disagree” instead.

Currently, the Republican party has been taken over by the craziest, worst elements. Outright fascists, white supremacists, and christian extremists. But there’s still people, our fellow human beings, that haven’t caught on to that fact yet. Not just republican voters either, there are democrats and libertarians that don’t get exactly how bad things will get without major efforts against the far right that have taken over, and the oligarchs that use them to maintain their power and wealth.

But this doesn’t make any given individual voter even ignorant. There are a lot of republicans that think the party can be salvaged, others that see it as a bump in the road that will go away on its own. They see the problems, but disagree on how best to handle it from the rest of us.

Pigeon holing that many people with dismissive, derogatory thinking by slapping labels onto them is dangerous. It’s also kinda hypocritical, but that’s tangential at best.

Remember the human, always. Remember that everyone has motivations, and that understanding them is a more powerful tool for change than dismissal, even if we don’t want to apply empathy and approach it from a desire to help someone be better. Even if the goal is to win, understanding the motivations and thinking of opponents at every level of power is necessary. The harder it is to do, the more important it is to work at it.

Me? Idgaf about parties. I don’t care about being better than a given bloc. I care about successfully shifting people as a whole towards the goal of equality, compassion, and mutual support. If that takes breaking apart and digesting the thinking of the extremists to find ways to counter their influence, so be it. If that takes applying compassion and empathy towards the people I disagree with, so be it; one does not have to abandon those things to fight against dangerous elements.

Even the nazi segments, if you don’t understand how and why they came to be, you can’t be as effective in countering and negating their influence (unless you wanna just go ham and take them out entirely).

I’m fine with revolution. I would be happy with it, but even then you have to know your enemy and plan accordingly. And be ready to stop thinking of them as the enemy when the fighting is over.