A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN AMERICAN
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal (Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt 1906) fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joes employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It’s noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.
Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
JJ.
…making the rounds since the 80s. Sen. Fritz Hollings was known to recite a variation which ended with the protagonist writing his Congressman to insist the federal government get off his back.
Do you really think the average Trump voter doesn’t know this? Do you believe there are Trump voters who will change their views after reading this?
Why aren’t the inclusive and enlightened people of the Democratic Party trying to figure out why these people are mad?
Instead in to one big one-ups-manship on clever arguments condemning Trump voters. That is a losing battle plan.
Yes, I think he does not know this. Worse yet, I believe he has so much false information that he thinks it’s all a lie. I think he believes that his water would be better, and cheaper, if a private company ran it. Have you not seen how many idiots out there buy water from the super market? Heck if you live in Needham and buy “Dasani”, you’re buying town water that’s been altered for no logical reason other than to send profits to private companies.
that government has done to improve people’s lives. At the same time, many Democrats don’t understand that sometime in the past 20 years their party largely stopped working on behalf of middle class voters and started working for corporate and special interests.
They have a visceral urge to destroy what they don’t understand, but somehow sense is superior to them. This is the source of their anger.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Good to know you’re willing to talk it out and look for the root cause.
The Democrats need more like you Fred grooming the next Katherine Clark.
The bacon was made safe over 100 years ago. Nixon cleaned up the water 40 years ago. The employer pays for the medications, and Joe has no clue what they cost. When I was an insurance agent and a person went onto COBRA, they flatly refused to believe their boss had been paying anything LIKE those premiums. Everything mentioned has been in place for many decades.
Joe is 27. When Dad was his age, he owned a home and had started his business. Joe was in grade school when Clinton was president, and high school when Bush was. The only president he has known as an adult is Obama – and other than playing Alibi Ike and explaining why he can’t do stuff because of Bush, Obama hasn’t done much and not much has happened for him. And although the words were addressed to black voters, a Trump remark resonated with him too – “Waddaya got to lose?”
We obviously disagree substantially on Obama, but you make a good point that Dems have been playing defense on our legacy rather than advancing bold, progressive ideas. ACA is too complicated and people think it’s different from Obamacare even thought they’re the same thing. The GM bailouts weren’t advertised this cycle and Obama hated talking credit for anything. All factors. This is why door to door, person to person campaigning is so essential right now. Both parties brands are in the toilet.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was passed in, well, 1948. Nixon signed the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972. It was amended in ’81 and again in ’87, and changed again with Title I of the Great Lakes Critical Programs Act of 1990. And that doesn’t take groundwater into consideration (Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Superfund 1980). Hell, since Republicans wouldn’t pass a law, Obama used executive powers to protect Appalachian streams from coalmine debris; the Republican Congress killed that earlier this year.
But, you know, since Nixon. Because why let the facts get in the way of a quip!
…water is cyclical. You don’t just clean all the water once and go home. Enforcement of such an act is an ongoing endeavor.
Winston Churchill
The old bulldog must have had your ‘average, mad’ Trumpist in mind.
Fred Rich LaRiccia