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Isabelle Williams's avatar

I am a former democrat, now planning to vote Republican and hoping that the GOP can change as much as the dems have changed. I see profound differences between the parties - and their faithful. The democrats believe in big government, in private-public partnerships, in social engineering, and ( this is new) in war. The republicans have some small government genes n their DNA, and they also have "isolationism" in their history, America first, no foreign wars.

The covid pandemic destroyed my belief in big government once and for all. It was clearly a nasty flu, but did not merit an worldwide authoritarian freak out. I do not want the government overseeing what germs I breathe , and forcing me, my pregnant daughter and my grandchildren to get untested mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccines ( that don't work). To add insult to injurty, alleged killer virus turns out to have most likely been cooked up by government funded program!

Our rights were trampled, we were lied to by the media, and no one ever apologized for lies and mistakes. Ventilators? 98% effective vaccines? Prominent scientists ( Bhattacharya of Stanford, Kulldorf etc) were censored when they questioned lockdowns. Lives were destroyed. Underprivileged children were stuck in lonely apartments with no school for TWO YEARS in some liberal cities. I will never forget and never forgive.

I am voting Republican. I love RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard (now with Trump). I am delighted that the two evil Cheneys have joined the democrats and left the GOP. I see a lot of substantive policy differences between the two parties. I hope the republicans can continue to shift towards more populism ( why is that a bad word). I hope to see Republican environmentalism develop that is not all about climate change and big government plans remake the economy. How about just getting chemicals out of the food and water for a start?

What a long strange trip its been.

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Larry Schweikart's avatar

Yes and no, Ruy. The Washington/Jefferson battles supposedly were just a culture war, but they reflected deep and critically important differences in how the culture shaped the policies. Imagine for a moment if Jefferson had won in 1796 and committed us as an ally to France. The U.S. probably would not exist. It took us another 16 years to get to the point we could repel another British invasion. Or take the formation of the Democrat Party by Martin Van Buren in 1826---ostensibly to elect Andrew Jackson, but the real goal was to protect and preserve slavery to as to prevent a civil war. It turns out from 1828 t0 1860, every single policy was a part of that "culture war" over slavery. You couldn't even send MAIL to the South if it opposed abortion . . . er, . . . slavery. No discussion in Congress was allowed that dealt with slavery.

Throughout our history culture wars are actually shorthand for real policies that dramatically shape the direction of the country. America First implies a dozen specific policies OF the culture that are inescapable: either we protect, defend, and prosper America first, or we drift into obsolescence and probably civil war or division. As a historian, I think this is the clear message of history. We defeated that impulse brought by the Democrats in 1860. Can we do it again? To be seen.

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