Then they whine that democrats are jerks when dems call them anything.

They've changed their colors but not their tune. Historically the Republicans said that everyone should be treated equally under the law and the Democrats claimed equal treatment was bad. Today it's the same thing but they're targeting a different demographic, so they still oppose equality under the law but it's a different set of exceptions.

Democrats need black votes much more than Republicans need racist votes, because there are a lot more black people than racists in the swing states. Which means Democrats need the narrative that Republicans are all racists to stick, so they spend a lot of time telling everybody that and publicizing every little instance they can find.

The Democrats would be in serious trouble if black people started believing that entrepreneurship is the best way for their communities to get out of poverty and voting for politicians who made it easier for them to start a business.

But if entrepreneurship really is the best way for a community to get out of poverty...

> Come on. Republican bang the drum for the culturally scared white vote, and they've done it consistently for over half a century regardless of the fidelity with which one explains civil rights legislation.

Don't conflate race and culture. The difference is really important. Because the difference is that a black man willing to work two jobs to go to college so he can get a middle class paycheck and live in a middle class neighborhood with middle class schools, can actually do that. That wasn't the case a century ago. And it's important to notice that nobody of consequence is asking for that to go back to the way it was.

The problem is that Democrats are now trying to pin their mess on Republicans and pay lip service to solving it. Even when they've had a legislative majority (e.g. Obama's first term), they still don't actually fix the criminal justice system, or gang violence, or a dozen other things that are actively making life hard for poor communities.

And when they claim to have done something like the ACA, it ends up being a huge taxpayer subsidy to corporations that donate to their campaigns and an arduous bureaucracy to the people it's supposed to help.

Yea, Democrats are annoying sometimes, but the situation we're in has consequences for a lot of people.

> At this point both sides suck and I want nothing to do with either.

I wish I could say that. For a lot of us, we can't say that. The Democratic party might be pissing you off, but the Republican party is truly harming millions of Americans. The Republican party is no longer John McCain and Mitt Romney. I have my issues with them, but both seem to genuinely care for people and want to make America a better place. Today, so many seem to want to weaponize hate.

I guess I'd ask you what you think the Democrats should do differently while protecting women, Black people, LGBT people, and other minorities. I guess I don't completely know what you mean by the Democrats having an "authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas". In most of my experience, it's been pushing for more inclusive language and not being mean to people while Republicans are forcefully trying to censor a lot of topics as they ban books and pass "don't say gay" bills. Is it that Democrats think Ye (Kanye West) shouldn't be given a massive platform to hate on Jews? Is it that Democrats think places like Netflix and SNL shouldn't pay Dave Chapelle millions to hate on Jews and trans people? I'd note about this is that the instant anyone says something bad about White people or men, Republicans all line up to say that they shouldn't have a platform to say that. Republicans try to "cancel" people just as much as Democrats do.

I think it's also important to note that there are differences between government restriction on speech and social condemnation of speech. People use speech to organize. Sometimes that's great and other times you get Nazis. There is a pretty big concern in many communities over the increase in violent attacks from right-wing groups. These are groups that are pushed forward by many main-stream Republican commentators and many Republican politicians. Sure, they'll say it should stop just short of violence, but it's an effective strategy.

I'm not arguing that the government should control speech, but any respectable person or organization should probably not promote Nazis. Would you hire a Nazi to give a speech at your company about their ideology? If you owned a newspaper, would you hire a Nazi to do your editorials? If you didn't, are you suppressing their speech? If you published a letter from a Nazi and put a big warning alongside it that your newspaper condemned the views expressed by the letter, are you suppressing that speech?

I'd also note that speech has real-world consequences. People used speech to create the political will to suppress Italian and Irish immigrants. People used speech to build coalitions to keep Black people enslaved. Nazis used speech to get the power to murder two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. Bad ideas should be fought against. Not all ideas are equal or equally good. Some ideas are evil and we need to make it known that they're evil ideas. Again, I'm not saying that the government should control speech, but I do expect good politicians to speak out against evil ideas and to call the people promoting those ideas bad. Hitler was a very bad person and Ye is a bad person for promoting Hitler as good. That's not suppression of speech. That's noting that Ye is supporting evil that should be opposed.

I genuinely understand that it's difficult to know where the line should be, but I'd also note that the past was never a bastion of free speech. You needed to be wealthy to publish things in the past. Most people didn't have free speech beyond who could hear them at the pub. In the 21st century where our communication is often less in-person, what does that mean for platforms like Facebook or Twitter which are kinda like newspapers, but also kinda masquerade as a personal communication device (or a common carrier as some people argue they should be)? What did it mean when newspapers controlled information and only some ideas were pushed by the newspapers with the biggest circulation? What does it mean if the in-person communication of yore is replaced by the Facebook of today?

I'd also note that speech always had consequences. People have always been "canceled" when a powerful person or their community decided that their speech was wrong - Senator Sumner argued against slavery and was beaten half to death on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senators. During the American Revolution, lots of people faced dire consequences if they said something that might have sounded too loyalist. People have always lost jobs because they said something a higher-up didn't like - or something a third party didn't like who had power with one of their higher-ups. People have been fired for coming out as gay. Are we talking about the same consequences that have always existed and have often been wielded (and continue to be wielded) by the right?

If you have constructive ways the Democrats could be better, I'm open to hearing them. I guess I'll close with hoping that you'll think of the LGBT people, women, Black people, and others in your life that will be harmed by today's Republican party. I hope you'll value us more than you're pissed off by Democrats. I want my life to be worth more than your resentment. I don't mean that as any kind of slight against you or anyone else - I understand how hard it is to vote for someone who genuinely pisses you off. I just truly hope that you'll choose me. I don't really know how else to say it. I like my life, I want to continue living it, I want to be protected by my government with the same rights as everyone else and not persecuted by it. Please choose me.

If you over-simplify, stereotype and demean people who disagree with you, you're part of the problem.

Honestly if it was that simple, then maybe we should just say no more killing babies and let the hunters shoot their deer and otherwise move forward with the rest of the Democratic party's platform.

The modern Democratic Party is outraged that the US Supreme Court told them this month that “there’s too many Asians!” isn’t a legal basis to engage in systemic racism at universities like Harvard and UNC.

Multiple Democrat politicians publicly have condemned that victory for civil rights — because their platform is rebuilding institutional racism.

I don’t know how twisted up you have to be to think the same party that founded the KKK, implemented Jim Crow, implemented racial quotas, and implemented systemic racism against Asians is somehow the one fighting for civil rights — but it’s factually untrue.

Democrats right now, today, are fighting to rebuild organized racism.

As they have for 150 years.

What is the alternative, the party of "Jews will not replace us"?

Fun fact: As a counterpoint, the Democratic Party debated adopting a similar derisive nomenclature for the Republicans. They decided against it because "Republican is the name by which our opponents' product is known and mistrusted".

I don't know why you're bringing up Democrats, it's irrelevant to me. Sure, you're trying to deflect from the white supremacists in the Republican ranks, but you're going about it in the most smooth brained way. I can critique Republicans while not being a Democrat, but your tribalism is blinding you to that possibility.

That's all I'm saying. I am not psychoanalyzing Republicans in general. Most Republicans probably aren't racist. That's not my point.

I'm really not interested in what you think Chinese Americans think, sorry.