There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between Democrats and
Republicans, complained the late George Wallace back in 1968, when
seven cents bought a Snickers bar. Thirty-seven years and 1,000
percent inflation later, you can still utter Wallace’s cynical
remark and it will buy you plenty of snickers at the local bar.
Here, then, as a public service, is my handy-dandy guide to who
is a Democrat and who is a Republican.
IF YOU’RE too dumb to figure out a butterfly ballot, then you’re
probably trying to vote for that smart Democrat Presidential
candidate. If you are smart enough to handle the ballot, you are
probably voting for that dumb Republican.
If you’re afraid to take a magnetic resonance image because your
nose ring might stick to the magnet, you’re a Democrat. If you’re
afraid to bob for apples at the church carnival because your tie
might fall into the water, you’re a Republican.
If you think that VP stands for Valerie Plame, you’re a
Democrat. If you think that it stands for Dick Cheney, then you’re
a Republican.
If you think that abortion is a medical procedure of utmost
privacy that is arrived at through a mystical confluence of a
woman’s agonizing choice and a physician’s gentle counsel, you’re a
Democrat. If you think that it’s just a form of retroactive birth
control, you’re also a Democrat. If you think that it has no moral
component, you’re a super Democrat. If you think that a human fetus
in the womb is a baby who feels pain but is helpless, then you’re a
scientist. There is no original Republican position on this, other
than to respect the science and protect that child.
If you think that the Army is a wonderful organization because
it fields a Corps of Engineers that protects the wetlands, you’re a
Democrat. If you think it’s wonderful because of its corps of
specialists that protect us by doing wet work, you’re a
Republican.
If you think that alfalfa sprouts are food but gently grazing
farm animals need protection from predatory humans, you’re a
Democrat. If you think like Dan Rather’s rancher father-in-law that
vegetables are “what food eats,” you’re a Republican.
If you think that Uncle Sam feeds you while Big Business is
trying to milk you dry, you’re a Democrat. If you think that God
feeds you, with a little help from a job through Big Business,
while Uncle Sam is milking you dry, you’re a Republican.
If you think that marriage is a beautiful thing that can be
shared by any two human beings who truly love each other and commit
to each other’s welfare in sickness or in health until death do
them part even if they share a gender as well as a toothbrush,
you’re a West Coast Democrat. If you think that marriage is an
artificial phony structure superimposed by society on the private
loves of individuals in an effort to homogenize them into bland and
dispassionate economic units so there’s really no point in caring
what gender the partners to this are, you’re an East Coast
Democrat. If you’re just stuck on the sweet old-fashioned notion
that marriage is between a man and a woman and it has some
transcendent importance even if you’re sort of dumbstruck when
asked to explain why, you’re a Republican.
If you think that recycling is virtue and Styrofoam is vice,
you’re a Democrat. If you think that a Yugo is virtue and an SUV is
vice, you’re a Democrat. If you think that having children is
virtue and not educating them is vice, you’re a Republican.
If you think that public schools are our children’s trusty
fortresses against fanaticism, you’re a Democrat. If you see them
as invidious laboratories for dissolving our culture, you’re a
Republican.
If you see criminals as the victims of the intrinsic inequity of
our society, you’re a Democrat. If you see them as choosers of a
bad path who prey on the hard-working and the good-hearted, you’re
a Republican.
If you think that America is an arrogant imperialist nation that
is trying to impose a set of parochial views on all humanity by
playing the role of sole superpower and policeman to the world,
you’re a Democrat. If you think that we are a kind and just nation
of people who would prefer to stay home but do not shy away from
sacrificing for freedom on faraway shores, you’re a Republican.
Finally, if you think the game that involves using an elongated
pole to poke a ball into a hole is called pool, you’re a Democrat.
If you think that it’s called golf, you’re a Republican. Which
reminds me: I’m much too poor to be a Republican. Brother, can you
spare a dime?
