It's not what, it's why

Everybody has an idea for what they believe whether it’s a good idea or not. And there are bad ideas. Ideas based on rumor, bias, prejudice, discrimination, gossip, or indirect knowledge are bad ideas. Ideas based on facts or direct observation are usually good ideas but even those are not good ideas all the time. They’re not always good ideas because we have to interpret facts and interpret direct observations and our interpretations are not always correct. In fact, often they’re incorrect. So how do we know what the truth is?

There are all kinds of examples of interpreting the facts wrongly but the best example is and always has been politics. Republicans and Democrats belong to those political parties because they believe in the core principles that their party stands for. I have a good friend in town who is a Democrat turned Republican and he constantly tells me that I’m a John F. Kennedy Democrat and that’s not what the Democratic party is anymore. I disagree on both those points.

He also tells me that if the Democrats win in 2020, we’ll have a Socialist government, which I don’t believe either. But the point is, he DOES believe it and nothing I say will change his mind. Just like nothing he says will change mine. Another good Republican friend rants and raves about Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer every day while my Democrat friends do the same about Mitch McConnell. We all know that these three people aren’t the Devil Incarnate and that they have good qualities AND bad qualities. We just refuse to see their good qualities.

I recently read an article detailing Republican and Democrat demographics that illustrate what this column is about.

In the 2012 election cycle, more people registered as independent voters than as Republicans. 35% of the electorate was registered as Democrats and only 28% were registered Republicans. However, independent voters leaned more towards the Republican demographic than the Democratic demographic. That’s because more Republicans have changed their registrations to independent than Democrats have and a few of the big names are George Will, Mary Matalin, and Steve Schmidt.

Why have they done this? There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people interested in politics and all of them, some of them or none of them may be right.

Another curious thing is that independents lean towards the Democrat Party when a Republican is President and the Republican Party when a Democrat is President. Does that make any sense? Not to most people but that’s the way it tends to work.

Other data indicates that white males support the Republican Party and white females the Democrat Party along with minorities. Only 8% of black voters described themselves as Republicans. That has remained largely unchanged since 1992. People who are younger and poorer tend to vote for Democrats, people older and more wealthy tend to vote for

Republicans. An obvious reason for this is that Democrats historically have supported minorities and the poor in the social programs they have proposed in Congress while Republicans have consistently protected the moneyed class.

We often hear that colleges and universities are the breeding ground for fiery, left-wing liberals trying to change the politics of our young people but the data has consistently shown that college graduates historically tend to support both parties equally. That’s just another assumption by a major political party that is wrong on its face.

Some other interesting data indicates that 36% of Millennials support the Republican Party while 55 % are registered Democrats. However, this advantage by the Democrats has decreased by 13 points since 2008.

Even though the Republican Party has its largest majority in Congress since 1928, 54% of Americans view the party unfavorably and when that happens only one thing is sure and that is gridlock which we most certainly have among the major branches of our government today.

What all of this means is that there are no clear answers. Children tend to grow up and become a member of the political party that their parents belong to and if their parents are split, the parent they identify with the most. A vast majority of Democrats and Republicans believe what they believe only because someone they identify with believes the same way and now, more than ever, it tends to be either a politician or a radio or television personality.

The ability to think for ourselves and make up our own minds has decreased significantly over the past several years and history proves that’s never a good thing because it’s those people who can be turned in any direction the powers that be want to turn them in.

And often that has meant revolution