Before I go any further, I just want to make it clear that I love Republicans. Some of my best friends are Republicans. Hell, my dad is an ex-hippy who voted for Obama in '08 and we probably agree on about 85% of policy issues (though occasionally disagree on the most effective means to achieve those agreed-upon ends) and he's a registered Republican, too.
(See what I did there? With the "Some of my best friends are..." thing? That was pretty clever, right?)
But this? This is hilarious.
I truly don't mean this as a post to make fun of Republicans; but rather, to laugh at people who are genuinely out of touch. I also wasn't lying about having Republican friends — I think a lot of people on the quote-unquote "liberal" side of the equation do unfortunately pass judgement on anyone who associates with the "R-word," and assume that they are all bigoted hyper-Christian corporate sellouts, which is both untrue, and unfair. I make no secret that I identify with more progressive social politics (although my expertise when it comes to economic politics is admittedly lacking), but on a very base and literal level, "right wing" means "small government, less intervention" and "left wing" means "more government oversight." Obviously, this is not how things always play out, but that's the trick with partisan politics that force us to choose between big government and liberal social views, or small government and conservative social views; nothing in the real world plays out quite as black-and-white as the options that we're given. That's the crazy part of the political clock, where people on the radical left turn to anarchy which actually has more in common with pure Republicanism (or at least Libertarianism, which has its own set of "better-in-theory" problems).
So tl;dr, I do appreciate this campaign's attempts to say "Hey! Some of us just believe in a free market economy where the government doesn't watch and control our every move! (a completely justifiable belief!) Just because our big-name represented officials in DC support Citizens United and claim 'Christian persecution' while trying to ironically dictate laws to women about their own bodies, doesn't mean that all of us fall into that category!" And again — despite what a lot of people in my liberal circles insist, not everyone who identifies as Republican is a racist homophobic misogynistic hatemonger. So in that way — yeah, okay, this marketing campaign makes sense (although it is a bit strange that all of the major elected officials who identify as Republican — and this does not necessarily extend to local officials because, well, I just don't know — either fall into this category, or else don't speak up against it). And it's certainly true that we probably shouldn't be making fun of other people in general. That being said, it still comes off as a laughably desperate attempt at seeming "cool" and "in-touch with the kids these days" which, man, really isn't helping your cause...
But then, maybe the guy that started this #ImARepublican movement just got me to post something vaguely positive-ish about Republicans on my otherwise-progressive blog. So maybe, just maybe, his secret scheme is working.
Also, let's not forget that Johnny Ramone was a Republican, too (much to the chagrin of Joey Ramone, who wrote this song about Johnny when Johnny married his ex-girlfriend):
