So strange.
Some of the most generous people I know voted for Trump, and tried to convince me to vote for Trump.
Life is indeed a rich tapestry.
There are some (including my FIL) who's perception of each party is so deeply rooted that it clouds their views on what they are actually advocating now. Whenever it comes up, my FIL talks glowingly of the GOP as the "party of fiscal constraint" and "the party that created environmental protection (i.e. the EPA)" and the "free trade party". Counterintuitively, the ballooning deficit and the gutting of environmental protection, the ongoing trade wars do not lessen his belief that the GOP are the defenders of these causes. He even (and often) mentions how it was the GOP who first nominated a woman to be VP, and the GOP who first had a black SOS - therefore they are rightfully the party of women and minorities, despite the most white executive branch and legislative representation in a quarter century.
Identity politics is a very powerful force. I don't quite understand it.
Sounds like the same people who say "But Lincoln was a Republican!"
if you go far enough back, Democrats were as equally as racist, and there has been a lot of corrupt Democratic politicians (I'm from IL). What is odd it seems the majority of Republicans have fled from their roots of: fiscal conservation, claiming themselves as the more moral or ethical choice, as well as the "compassionate conservative" cloak. It seems a strange coalition of, nativism, religious extremism (trying to force their religious values on entire US aka abortion rights and women being 2nd class citizens in general), and powerful special interests (who really, except for some hot button issues have have literally dictated (written) Republican legislation so far). Maybe it makes nativists and fundamentalists happy, but it is certainly not representative of what the majority of Americans want, which are reasonable wants (safety, health, affordability) and it is abdicating their role of being a good public servant of our nations resources (public lands including national parks and the trees and resources on national lands, public water, water and air quality, fisheries). Conservatives are actually quite "liberal" and wasteful of our natural resources, which belong to ALL of us, and selling them for pennies on the dollar to private interests. They are liberal and wasteful in their energy policies, both in terms of environmental impact, and also in our competitive ability to transition to more sustainable energy use, versus burning it up all now and then having us crash and burn later. Certainly not environmentally conservative in the sense of using emergency orders to allow use of bee killing pesticides, which has downstream effects on our food supply.
Big businesses have always had the power and monies to unduly influence our legislation. This was such a concern even at the time of the founders of this country they explicitly limited corporations power.
Our elected representatives are supposed to serve as a check, by doing what is in the best interest of their citizens. Republicans have seen to have completely forgotten this golden rule, and instead it has been just a big machine of getting in power and rubber stamping their special interests legislation. It's a cycle that has gotten completely out of hand. If they don't vote the way the special interests want, they will withdraw their funding, and the politician won't get re-elected.
Citizen's United ruling, really needs to be revisited. It both granted corporations personhood (which directly contradicts the limits imposed on corporations in the constitution and amendments) but also stated that unlimited spending was their method of "free speech".