That's a common theory....that Democratic party policies create welfare dependency and thus create reliable Democratic voters. I understand the reasoning, and for a while I believed it, but it doesn't actually seem to work like that in real life. The first thing that made me question it was seeing MAGA memes being posted by people who I know are receiving benefits. I put some numbers below which look to me like if the Democratic Party's evil plan is to make voters dependent on them that it's not working because the recipients tend to vote Republican about as often as the general population does. I can't see inside their heads, so I don't know why that is, but I assume the eye doth not see itself. I.e.: "I'm not on welfare; I just get Medicaid and a Section 8 housing voucher and that's totally different from welfare."
The welfare topic and the federal budget are the two that made me lose faith in the Republican party. Have you guys noticed that the budget is only a Republican talking point when there's a Democrat in the White House? We're on track for higher spending and a higher deficit in 2025 compared to 2024. There are a handful of representatives who will talk about it, and a couple of hundred who it turns out don't actually care. They'll never balance the budget because they'd have to either raise taxes, reduce military spending, reduce entitlement spending, or some combination of the 3. It's obvious why they don't want to raise taxes or cut military spending, but why not reduce entitlements since they're always complaining about them? Well, that becomes obvious too when you find out that Republicans use those programs just as much as Democrats do. Obviously, Democrats aren't fixing it either. We're just going to drive the bus off the cliff, and everybody will come up with reasons why it was someone else's fault. ******Below here is the boring data stuff****** Social Security Disability - recipients have a similar spread of political affiliations as the general public. A source I found interesting: https://www.lls.edu/media/loyolalawschool/coelhocenter/one%20pager.Disability%20Community%20Coelho.F.2018.10.30.pdf. <-- According to this a majority of actual disability recipients were Republicans at the time of the survey (2018). However, a majority of the "disability community", which basically means the friends and family of disability recipients, were Democrats. This one: https://cpsblog.isr.umich.edu/?p=3152 makes the case that people whose identity is wrapped up in being disabled are more likely to support "socially liberal policies", but at the same time being disabled made no discernable difference in their party affiliation. ACA (Obamacare) - A majority of the working age recipients (18-64) are Republican. And this struck me as odd, but both major parties have a stronger representation among ACA participants than among the general population. Medicaid recipients - Similar party distributions as the general population. According to Pew Research, the general population in 2025 is 31% Republican and 28% Democrat. The poll below shows 27% Republicans and 37% Democrats among Medicaid enrollees. It's Democrat heavy, compared to the general population, but not in a major way. [cid:d79a4b77-1a1f-4baf-acb2-ce3395e190f7] ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 1:36 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) If you are a slave of the welfare state, you are certainly to fall into the "uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, [...] and poor as dirt" category. Democrats know what they are doing… From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:29 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) I sometimes wonder if they're just doing things to get people talking about something besides Epstein. If so, it's working. I live in the den of evil over here in NY, and I too have never encountered anyone who called themselves "Antifa". In contrast to Chuck's statement, "uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, [...] and poor as dirt" sounds like at least half of our MAGA people. I wonder: NY's electoral votes haven't gone to a Republican since 1984. Utah's haven't gone to a Democrat since 1964. Maybe the poor and disaffected are drawn to the opposition party in whatever state they're in. I'll look up statistics later tonight.... if I remember to. If that's not true then maybe Chuck and I are each putting our personal bias on display. ________________________________ From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 1:09 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Maybe they are saying this in an ironic or humorous way. Like if grumpy old people are terrorists, I must be a terrorist. Since antifa (upper or lower case a?) is a leaderless and decentralized movement, not sure it could be declared an organization, terrorist or otherwise. Kind of like idiots or assholes or for that matter good samaritans, they exist, but are they organized? Can you raid their clubhouse and imprison their leaders? Seems we are trying to categorize people who disagree with us as an organization, no doubt funded by George Soros (but not Elon Musk or Peter Thiel). From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:53 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Real life people, relatives, former employees etc. It is coming up due to Trumps trying to declar antifa to be a terrorist organization. Some of these people are saying they must be terrorists now. From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 10:46 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Is your sphere of influence real life people you know, or online stuff? I honestly have never had a single person IRL mention Antifa, much less belong to such an organization. And Utah seems an unlikely place to have Antifa cells. But Howard from Big Bang Theory reminds us you don’t need to experience something to know you want it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXXcqDHEC0o Maybe you mean nihilism and not literally Antifa. There seems to be a bumper crop of disaffected nihilists these days. Not sure that fits neatly into a left/right political narrative. More like there will always be people who think the world has screwed them over and want to burn the whole thing down. From: AF <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:16 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Odd that the majority of the people in my sphere of influence that are espousing the goodness of antifa are all uniformly: uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, and in many cases with minor criminal records, but all of them are as poor as dirt it seems. Poverty is what drove the Russian revolution. Perhaps that is the driver here. I just cannot get behind the ideology. This is what Wikipedia says: Ideology<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies> Anti-fascism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism> Anti-authoritarianism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-authoritarianism> Anti-capitalism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-capitalism> Anti-statism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-statism> Anti-Trumpism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_Donald_Trump> Anarchism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism> Socialism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism> Communism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism> Political position<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum> Left-wing<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics> Major actions Direct action<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action> Community organizing<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_organizing> Mutual aid<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid> Harassment<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment> Digital activism<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_activism> Doxing<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing> Picketing<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing> Political violence<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence> Protest marching<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_march> Status Active
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