I came across this political quiz at the New York Times.
Using eight questions it claims to be able to predict your political
affiliation. None of the questions have anything to do with policy or
ideology; all are related to race, sexual orientation, education and
religion.
I took the quiz. Party affiliation strength is rated on a scale of 1-100 for both parties. I scored as a +48 Democrat, which means right now I should be deciding whether to support Bernie, Handsy Joe, Granny Warren, or Willie Brown’s [redacted] in the primary. Long ago, before the last Ice Age, I used to be a Democrat but the last time I voted for a D presidential candidate was 1976 and the last time for any office (other than local) was around 1990.
Where did I go wrong?
My Democratic parents raised me to believe America was the greatest country in the world and we were fortunate to be here. They taught me Commies were bad, really bad. They taught me you needed to work hard to succeed, though they also knew it did not guarantee success. They taught me we had an obligation to help those who couldn’t help themselves, though admittedly their definition of being unable to help themselves was much narrower than that of today’s progressives. They taught me to treat everyone decently, unless they proved they should be treated otherwise, and they taught me that something needed to be done to improve America’s treatment of what were then called Negroes.
I believed then and now they were right in what they taught me.
So maybe this is more about where the Democratic party went wrong.
There’s always been a cottage industry among progressive journalists and intellectuals seeking to explain why Republicans are so racist and xenophobic (and if you read the text surrounding the Times quiz you will see it is dripping with progressive assumptions about how and why people vote Republican), which has exploded into full-time work with the Trump presidency. What is most striking about these musing is their lack of insight into their own belief system and how it looks to anyone not immersed in their world.
In both my personal life and in thirty years in the corporate world where I hired, managed, promoted, and mentored many people I’ve always been the same; treat people fairly, and I'm confident that's how others see me. I’ve seen people discriminated against, been outraged, and objected. For that entire time it has not mattered what my political affiliation has been, nor what anyone else's political affiliation was.
I'm not happy with the overall trend in American politics, regardless of party, but I've witnessed the old Democratic party disintegrate over the decades and now transform completely in the 21st century into an organization that manufactures divisiveness, suppresses dissent, seeks to punish its enemies by denying them a livelihood, and wants a permanent one-party state in which identity defines ones belief system. It’s a party that devalues ideas and an individual’s ability to make decisions. I feel like I’m watching the scene in Alien where the creature bursts from a crew member’s chest and seeks to devour everything in sight.
Or, as Joe Walsh put it, “Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed“.
It’s why the social justice crowd and white nationalists, race realists or whatever they are calling themselves now, deserve each other. They have the same analysis of society and our political system. Their only difference is in who they think should be on top. Actually, there is one more difference – one is a fringe group of crazies, the other seems to have seized control of one of our two major parties.
I think this best sums up my reaction to the Times quiz:
I took the quiz. Party affiliation strength is rated on a scale of 1-100 for both parties. I scored as a +48 Democrat, which means right now I should be deciding whether to support Bernie, Handsy Joe, Granny Warren, or Willie Brown’s [redacted] in the primary. Long ago, before the last Ice Age, I used to be a Democrat but the last time I voted for a D presidential candidate was 1976 and the last time for any office (other than local) was around 1990.
Where did I go wrong?
My Democratic parents raised me to believe America was the greatest country in the world and we were fortunate to be here. They taught me Commies were bad, really bad. They taught me you needed to work hard to succeed, though they also knew it did not guarantee success. They taught me we had an obligation to help those who couldn’t help themselves, though admittedly their definition of being unable to help themselves was much narrower than that of today’s progressives. They taught me to treat everyone decently, unless they proved they should be treated otherwise, and they taught me that something needed to be done to improve America’s treatment of what were then called Negroes.
I believed then and now they were right in what they taught me.
So maybe this is more about where the Democratic party went wrong.
There’s always been a cottage industry among progressive journalists and intellectuals seeking to explain why Republicans are so racist and xenophobic (and if you read the text surrounding the Times quiz you will see it is dripping with progressive assumptions about how and why people vote Republican), which has exploded into full-time work with the Trump presidency. What is most striking about these musing is their lack of insight into their own belief system and how it looks to anyone not immersed in their world.
In both my personal life and in thirty years in the corporate world where I hired, managed, promoted, and mentored many people I’ve always been the same; treat people fairly, and I'm confident that's how others see me. I’ve seen people discriminated against, been outraged, and objected. For that entire time it has not mattered what my political affiliation has been, nor what anyone else's political affiliation was.
I'm not happy with the overall trend in American politics, regardless of party, but I've witnessed the old Democratic party disintegrate over the decades and now transform completely in the 21st century into an organization that manufactures divisiveness, suppresses dissent, seeks to punish its enemies by denying them a livelihood, and wants a permanent one-party state in which identity defines ones belief system. It’s a party that devalues ideas and an individual’s ability to make decisions. I feel like I’m watching the scene in Alien where the creature bursts from a crew member’s chest and seeks to devour everything in sight.
Or, as Joe Walsh put it, “Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed“.
It’s why the social justice crowd and white nationalists, race realists or whatever they are calling themselves now, deserve each other. They have the same analysis of society and our political system. Their only difference is in who they think should be on top. Actually, there is one more difference – one is a fringe group of crazies, the other seems to have seized control of one of our two major parties.
I think this best sums up my reaction to the Times quiz:
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