It can be hard to be purple in a blue state. I was born and raised in Los Angeles County, in a bustling, diverse area of West Hollywood now more populated by hipsters and the LA elite. In the 90’s, however, I grew up seeing rampant homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution, and other social ills that befall a society that favors the wealthy and ignores the plights of society. I was raised to care for those who could not care for themselves, and to embrace people for the differences they can bring, rather than reject them for being part of the “other.” I remember making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my mother and sister one Christmas Eve to hand them out to our “local” homeless people- the homeless men and women you begin to recognize as part of your community. Some drop coins in their cups or offer them a half-hearted pity smile as they bristle past them into whatever shop they are trying to spend their money in. We started with the kind homeless man who was usually outside our local Blockbuster. I remember feeling good- like I was helping and making a difference.
I was not raised with any sort of shame around sexuality. As a child, I made no mental distinction between hetero- or homosexual relationships. I had friends, teachers, and mentors of various backgrounds and ethnicities. This is my foundation of social democracy or social liberalism. I believe we should be more embracing of our differences, and open to changing for the better as individual humans, as a society, as a country, and as a world. I believe we need to protect the environment instead of special interest groups. I believe the government should be representative of the composition of the population, instead of the incredibly unbalanced representation of old, white, wealthy men. It is getting better, but it is far from where it should be to properly represent the country as a whole. If these ideas sound far left, I will conceded that if to be left means to keep religious beliefs and persuasions out of policy, and to protect our planet and our people, then yes, I may be as left and as blue as the rest of them.
I lived in the area by what is now known as “The Grove” during the Rodney King riots in kindergarten, and I watched as plumes of smoke filled the sky and sirens, helicopters, and a cacophony of rage was all you could hear. This was my first personal experience witnessing the fallout of racial tensions and police brutality. I was a sophomore during 9/11, which began the longest-running war in US history. This was my first experience simultaneously in real patriotism, as well as the understanding that the United States was not as well-received globally as we were taught. I graduated high school in 2004, which meant the year my classmates were graduating from their colleges was the year of the 2008 great recession. Most of them had to move back in with their parents instead of starting their own independent lives. I watched the fall out of the recession with a broken heart as once-thriving neighborhoods had most of the businesses shuttered. This was my first experience in questioning the shady methods that permeated nearly all parts of our society, and how many Americans had a false sense of security that the greatest country in the world could overcome anything.
America was funded by taxation. What differentiated this from previous societies was the idea that there could be “no taxation without representation,” in the new nation’s attempt of a democracy which created a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” As we have seen in recent years, that system was based on trust- a commodity we no longer have. We have become a country ruled by ancient and wealthy politicians who focus more on their own personal gain than the needs of their constituents.
Where I turn from blue to purple simply put is fiscal policy. On one hand, I believe, as Mahatma Gandhi did, that “a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” I believe we should be taking care of the less fortunate, the mentally ill, and our veterans.
In order to support this view, we need a stronger financial backing for these social programs. I say this as a person who had to rely on social programs when I lost my job, and therefore my health insurance, when I became too ill to perform my intense physical job requirements. I went from reliable doctors who could usually accommodate a last minute appointment for an illness to a system so overworked and underfunded that it took months for me to make an appointment with a psychiatrist to obtain medication I needed. I am eternally grateful that I did not wind up with surprise bills after 4 hospital visits due to complications from the illness that cost me my job. I am grateful my medication was covered in a time that I desperately needed them but had no way to pay for them without these programs. I say this as a person who had to use Planned Parenthood to obtain birth control in my 20s when my preferred contraceptive was around $120 per month if insurance didn’t cover it, because this was before employers were mandated to cover the costs of birth control. Even in my early 20s, I was shocked that so many people thought their religious beliefs should prevail over a non-profit organization that saves the country countless thousands of dollars. The cost of preventing pregnancy is much less expensive to the taxpayers than forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, having her go through the agony of birth, and giving that baby up or keeping the baby she may be unable to afford. On real world calculations, the difference in cost to the taxpayer is astonishing.
As an example, let’s take two women in similar financial situations. Let’s assume these women are living paycheck to paycheck supporting themselves, and are barely making it. Woman A knows if she can’t consistently feed herself, she cant afford the cost of having a child. She goes to Planned Parenthood to get subsidized birth control based on her income. She uses it correctly and does not get pregnant. The cost to the tax payer is a nominal monthly cost.
Assume Woman B is in the same situation, but her religious beliefs prohibit her from taking birth control or getting an abortion should she accidentally become pregnant. Say she does become pregnant, but was already stretched on her budget. She signs up for public assistance for doctors appointments, nutrition classes, and food assistance benefits so the baby will be healthy. When the baby is born, she cannot afford to keep it, and her parents urge her to give the baby up. The baby enters foster care for up to 18 years of taxpayer money for a system that is notoriously damaged. In this scenario, this person’s religious beliefs literally costs taxpayers money.
Both my socially progressive side and my fiscally conservative side are screaming that Woman A made the more fiscally responsible decision to decide if and when to start and support a family. I would much rather pay to lower the percentage of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies than to pay for the gestation, birth, and subsequent government raising of a child for 18 years. I am abhorred at the blatant hypocrisy, particularly from the Christian right, that they will defend a cluster of cells as a human with rights, however once the baby is born, the support for the “sanctity of life” pretty much evaporates. I am definitely not the first to notice this looming inconsistency. It has been said many times that the Christian right is simply pro-birth, not pro-life.
The topic of abortion is still hotly debated despite the majority of the electorate supporting legal abortion in some form. I chose birth control as the financial example because it is less incendiary and and provides a real-world comparison of the cost to taxpayers for unwanted pregnancies.
Speaking on terms of length of life, there has been another glaring issue that most Millennials realized during their first jobs- we have been paying into a system our entire working lives that, in all probability, will not be properly funded by the time we are meant to be able to take advantage of it: social security. According to the Social Security Administration’s history page, “[i]ncreases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the ‘baby boom’ generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security's future financial condition.” Simply put, this system was designed and funded under the assumptions of a shorter life expectancy, a smaller population, and an increasing amount of people who would pay into the system. The amount of Boomers collecting Social Security far outpaces those of us paying into it. As the generation born from the Boomers, Millennials have a growing resentment for the generation that simultaneously told us we were special but also entitled and lazy. We have a growing resentment for a generation that will not bow out of politics and continues to press agendas that the majority of Americans do not support. We are frustrated that fixing the planet fell on our shoulders without the resources to do so, and that older generations are telling us we are either too radical or too complacent.
The country has become so divided, and people lack faith and trust in the government to protect all of its citizens. Funding is a major reason for distrust, as lower- and middle-class families pay thousands in taxes while the wealthy laugh at our inability to access loopholes that allow them to pay next to nothing- or literally nothing, as we have seen by certain tax returns- while reaping all of the benefits of functioning in a society without being beholden to helping pay for it.
Boomers, the younger generations are begging you to step aside. According to the Federation of American Scientists, “The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 116th Congress [2019-2020] was 57.6years; of Senators, 62.9 years.” This means both branches of government are led mainly by people approaching, at, or past the age of retirement. I understand the appeal for a large swath of the population to have their interests represented by “their own.” The issue is, in doing this, we are stifling the voices of forward thinkers and innovators that could take our country in a direction that heals our divides, brings us closer to each other and what we love about America, and save the shreds of Democracy that have been left in tatters by a President who has yet to run into significant obstacles that limit his lies, corruption, and dismantling of our political system.
We need drastic change on so many fronts, and we are restrained by a flawed system that was created in a time that had no way of predicting the lightning speed of technological advances. We need a government run by the majority. We need to seriously confront our contribution to the climate crisis and act accordingly. We need to stop voter purging, suppression, and intimidation. We cannot change these systems until we oust the group of supposed representatives that are trying to consolidate and keep power and money in the hands of old white men. Women and minorities are slowly beginning to gain a foothold in American politics, but in the desperate circumstances we find ourselves in in 2020, the change is not happening fast enough.
Sources:
Manning, J. E. (2020). Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile [PDF]. District of Columbia: Congressional Research Service.
Social Security. (n.d.). Retrieved October 05, 2020, from https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
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