Suppose you’re still buying the same brand of cereal your mom bought you. But after years of loyalty, you’ve noticed that it’s no longer as tasty or crunchy, the boxes are smaller, they’re only two-thirds full and they cost way more. The ingredients are mostly chemicals now. Your stomach feels queasy after eating a bowl. But at the store, you grab that old box without even thinking.
A friend says she’s stopped buying that brand and now eats granola. “Granola? That’s hippie food!” It’s time to review your old prejudices and discover that granola is tastier and healthier than that old brand.
I suspect a lot of Republicans keep voting R because it’s how they were raised.
Voting Democratic is like eating granola — even though Republicans know that the R brand isn’t what it used to be, they keep hearing how evil the D brand is.
But they’ve met Democrats, people at work, school, the gym. They seem OK — on the surface, anyway. Some are married, have kids, work, own houses, go to church, pay their bills on time, watch football and baseball, even hunt.
Republicans’ brand is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Or even Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or the Bushes.
Your brain is telling you it’s time, but this is all you’ve known since childhood. It’s hard to change. It takes courage, but it’s time to face the reality that the R brand isn’t the brand your parents raised you on. It’s now a toxic scam.
Time to try the granola.
— Steven Aufrecht
Anchorage
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