single issue voting

My dad is an episcopal priest, who does a lot of work in interfaith dialogue. He always tells me that he finds it much easier to talk to members of a different religion than to non-affiliated ‘spiritual’ people or agnostics. His point was that people of faith understand each other, even if their religions are different; it doesn’t matter what you believe just believe in something, that was his take away. This same philosophy applies to politics and social issues. I’ve been told that one issue of the left is single-issue activists and single-issue protesting, but I don’t think that’s true. The issue is the lack of dialogue and cooperation across these single issues. If you believe passionately in women’s right to choose than your energy should be focused there, because that is where your energy does the most good. You don’t need to struggle to twist and pull women’s rights into black rights or gay rights, although perhaps womens rights was a bad example due to the existence of black and gay women, just go with it. Don’t change your issue to make it relevant to other leftists, other leftists should be coming to you. All these single issues, they don’t need to change, they just need to support eachother. The fight for the rights of any disenfrancished, marginalized group, is all of our fight, particularly the fight of other marginalized groups. So don’t change, organize.

 

It seems to me that Republicans have done a great job of this. Somehow all these single-issue platforms have been  mixed into their platform. Anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, pro-gun ownership, anti-taxes and anti-government feelings have all become part of being a republican, and so a person who feels strongly against abortion finds themselves also supporting politicians who are primarily anti-immigrant. Why can’t democrats do this? Why are they constantly tip-toeing around issues, afraid to align themselves too strongly with any group too radical, too passionate about their issue, groups that could deliver votes? Guys the rising tide will raise all boats, your struggle is my struggle, and most importantly, together we can win.