Voting Against Yourself

Hey Conservatives, how 'bout this?

From now on you only reap the benefits (and consequences) of the party you voted for. In this scenario, you no longer have access to what you've voted against.

Let's try this on for size...

If you helped elect those who support and encourage and protect your right to a living wage, healthcare, vaccines, education, equal rights, civil rights, worker protections, racial justice, consumer protections, environmental integrity, women's autonomy, veteran's benefits, equality, social security, corporate regulations, social justice, community programs, etc. then you can reap the rewards/benefits/entitlements of those things.

If you helped elect those who work against those things, you don't get to enjoy those things. Simple, right?

Instead, you can just sit in your truck with your guns, your rebel flag, and your $10,000 electric bill from your privatized, de-regulated utility company.

While you’re sitting there you can figure out how you’re gonna stay safe from "hoax!" diseases because your "people" don't believe in science, and many vaccines and treatment protocols are from stem cells -- aborted fetuses, oh no! You can't go there, lest you be called a hypocrite.

You'll also need to learn how to earn a fair wage with no minimum pay requirements, worker safety protocols, hourly limits, or paycheck protections.

You'll need to figure out how you’re gonna rent, build, or own your house with no building codes, rent or mortgage rate regulations; how you’re gonna nourish your body with no health or safety guidelines protecting food production and distribution -- and no immigrant farmworkers.

You also need to decide how you’re gonna get medical attention with no healthcare protections, pharmaceutical regulations, or overall quality control; how you’re gonna tend your aging parents with no Medicare, Social Security benefits, or assisted living regulations; or who you're gonna call when your house catches fire -- because, you know, fire departments are social programs and well, socialism is the devil.

Sure, you’ll be able to use public restrooms safely, after your genitals are checked and approved at the door. You’ll be able to enjoy the fact that your wives, girlfriends, daughters, and mistresses have to birth and raise every single egg that is fertilized by you, their boyfriend(s), their one-night-stands, and/or their rapists.

Which will mean lots of babies for you to help raise! You may need to get a bigger truck? Because you're against "socialism" and "welfare" programs and job placement and quality education, but those babies must be born! Even if Mama has no marketable skills and can't afford to feed them.

Too bad you also hate Planned Parenthood -- which helps hundreds of thousands of women and girls achieve responsible birth control methods.

So yeah, raise them babies.

Or, perhaps you could just send them to a concentration camp? You've already proven that you don't hear the cries of children in cages. That may work well for you and all those embryos that just have to be born.

I suppose you could place them up for adoption, but good luck there. Especially since more than half of the available loving homes are with single people, libtards, or gays.

It's a tough situation to ponder, I know.

Perhaps you can sort out these problems by enjoying a walk around your town park full of historical heroes. Enjoy connecting with your racist statues of traitors proudly waving their confederate flags... because their supporters voted against their own interests too.

In fact, the Confederate States didn't even accept their new President's election win in 1860 -- and 10 "slave states" didn't even allow his name on the ballot. ("Party of Lincoln" my ass!) Instead, they elected their own guy. That guy encouraged an insurrection against the United States government too. Imagine that!

Or maybe a camping trip will better help bring some clarity? Just head off into an unprotected local forest -- with clearcut wastelands, toxic riverbeds, and oil sludge from leaky wells and unregulated pipelines, with views of blown-up mountaintops from strip-mining -- while breathing carcinogenic air and fishing in arsenic, atrazine, mercury, and lead-laced waterways (because Yay! for unregulated fossil fuel extraction!)

Just for fun: Many environmental contaminants not only cause cancer but are also endocrine disruptors or hormone mimics, which means they feminize males and masculinize females -- invitro as well as in growing children. Oh! the irony for those who speak out against LGBTQ protections!

But maybe you can just pray away these demons on Sundays? After all, you still have church and the good book -- you know, the one that tells the story of the brown-skinned liberal dude that was murdered for speaking up for the poor, the immigrant, and those in need of healthcare?

While you're working this out, at least you won’t have to worry about people of color — African-Americans, Mexicans, Muslims, Indians, Asians — stealing your job or otherwise bothering you. But you also won’t be able to benefit from these humans, their talents or skill sets.

Need a life-saving operation for yourself or your child? Too bad! It just so happens that the best doctors available near you happen to have dark pigment in their skin so they will now be able to refuse to perform work for your racist ass.

You know, just like you get to refuse to bake gay wedding cakes. Same thing.

And, since you're against the Black Lives Matter movement, and you got raging mad when a football player had the audacity to kneel in sorrow, and you didn't take the time to mourn the loss of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Emantic Bradford Jr, or too many others murdered by men who will never be punished for the crimes, we should touch on your relationship with law and order.

I know, I know... blue lives matter. (Unless they're preventing a radical right-wing insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, am I right? Then they can be beaten to death with fire extinguishers, have their eyes gouged out, or even more fun, be beaten with a United States flag!)

We'll just overlook that detail for now. I understand you don't like inconvenient truths.

No problem. Police brutality isn't actually a thing anyway, right? No oversight needed there. Next time you get pulled over for speeding, or your teenager gets caught with a joint, or your niece gets caught shoplifting, you'll understand that being beaten, shot, or choked to death is acceptable for those petty crimes.

Still, no worries. You’ll be free to burn your masks, gather in large groups against CDC recommendations and spread communicable diseases... but only to those who also voted against rational community health guidelines. Those who support sound, scientific and medically responsible approaches to public health will be immune from your cooties -- because in this scenario they get to benefit from policies they support, just like you own your allegiances.

If only we could reap the benefits of ONLY the political party we voted for, the world would look different indeed.

Of course, certain parties are working hard to achieve sufficient voter suppression to ensure their electability, so you may actually lose your right to vote if the "other" party decides to play the same game and gerrymanders the hell out of your district... that could shake things up a bit.

Until then, science, decency, justice, equality, healthcare, education, consumer and environmental protections, etc. are going to be the things the majority of us continue to fight for.

(Un)fortunately, in real life, you don't only reap the rewards (or consequences) of your own choices. People who routinely vote against basic human decency will continue to reap the rewards of the hard work of Progressives -- who routinely put humanity over prejudice and fight tirelessly for your right to be an idiot.

But you do you, Boo. Freedom and all that jazz.