Back in 2016, I got to taste a new flavor from Ben & Jerry’s called “Feel the Bern” which showed their support for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Anyone who gets surprised that Ben & Jerry’s is political hasn’t been paying attention.
Then again, some people became shocked that Rage Against The Machine was political leading to a commenter asking “what machine did you think they were raging against?”
I like Liftoff and Jerboa. I flip between them depending on my mood.
Republicans seem to want to turn back the clock to the 1950’s and in one aspect I agree with them. The top tax rate back then was 90%. That should be returned for anyone making over $10 million.
Unlike Republicans, though, I think people should be free to be who they are - whether they’re LGBTQ or straight/cisgender, black or white, Christian or Jewish or atheist, or any other group I didn’t list. (I didn’t list all groups only because I don’t want this comment to be novel length.) Basically, as long as your actions affect only yourself and consenting adults, I’m fine with them.
I’m also fine with parents having some control over what their kids do. I’m a parent myself and know that as a parent you need to make judgement calls as to what’s best for your child. I wouldn’t want someone else questioning my parenting based on their beliefs. However, there are limits. If your child is LGBTQ and you try to force them to be straight/cisgender, you aren’t acting in your child’s best interests. If your 10 year old child is raped and their life is in danger, but you refuse to allow them to have an abortion because your religion doesn’t allow it, then you’re harming your child.
Also, a person’s “parental rights” shouldn’t mean that they get to decide that certain books are banned from everyone reading them. My son actually just finished reading a book because it had been banned and we laughed over how innocuous the “ban triggering passage” was compared to some stuff in the Bible.
Basically, I think I’d call myself a Pragmatic Progressive. I advocate for progressive causes, but I also realize that society can often be slower to adapt than we like. While we would love to be able to pass X and have it be widely adopted immediately, there’s often a series of slow moving battles to get X passed and another slow march to get wide acceptance. We can’t simply throw in the political towel at the first setback. Neither can we pass up 10% of our goal being within our grasp because we’re holding out for 100%. We need to get whatever advancements we can while continually pushing for more.
It was the worst possible response. Had they stuck to their guns, the right would have remained angry, but the left would have been fine. By ditching Mulvaney over the “outrage,” the left became upset and the right wasn’t mollified.