Why I'm Not A Republican

I know it's extremely confusing when a liberal doesn't like crime and thinks marriage is good. Let me explain.

Every now and then (aka, every day) someone asks me why I’m not a Republican. And I assume it’s not just because I own the same dress as the White House press secretary.

Sometimes, this person is on the Left, and feels that I’ve betrayed my fellow Democrats in some way, usually because of some "heterodox” opinion like “public disorder is bad” or “DoorDash is not a human right.” But while I get the occasional lefty scold, most of the people accusing me of secret Republicanism are Republicans themselves, who see stuff I write and say, “Hey, you have some common sense—why not join us? How can you still align yourself with such lunacy?”

And if your only exposure to the Left has been either radicals who say “abolish the family” or unoriginal resist libs who say things like “fuck the fuckity-fuck-fuck fascist Cheeto” I might seem like a bit of an oddity to you. But I would venture many liberals are like me, and are still, unambiguously, proudly, libcucked. So here are all my reasons why (respectfully) I am still not a Republican.

If you’re planning to read this, I must warn you that we will disagree on at least one thing. It’s fine if you want to tell me we disagree! However, if my disagreeing with you makes you angry, then you need to drink a glass of water and call your mom.

First, here’s why I might seem like a Republican.

I would be remiss not to at least explain why this keeps happening to me, because it sure as hell isn’t happening to Jessica Valenti. The lowest common denominator is obviously me, and I want to clear things up so I’m not doing what Republicans what Ariana Grande did to the Latino community.

For one, I say things about my personal life that come off as very trad-coded. And in many ways, I am “traditional.” I am traditional by choice. I don’t pretend it’s a feminist choice, but I also don’t really care if it’s a feminist choice. I met my husband at 19, and that was something I wanted. I am still very much in love with him after seventeen years together, and hope for many more! I love “traditional” hobbies like cooking, gardening, baking and sewing. I sew lots of clothes! I dress in a way that is so feminine that it’s been referred to as “femme camp,” which is far more queer than I can reasonably claim, given how few women I’ve slept with (zero, in case you’re wondering. Thank you for this moment of straight woman visibility).

Some of you might say none of that is Republican-coded, and honestly, I agree, but some people seem to think it is. So.

I also have a really hard time making decisions, which is obviously not a political thing (except for the one time I was a swing voter in a local election—between two Democrats—and got paralyzed in the voting booth and wanted to ask the volunteers to choose for me). Sometimes this weakness comes across in a way that reads trad. I defer to my husband and have referred to myself as “submissive,” which has actually alienated some of my left-leaning readers. I even joked that I was the “office sub” when I worked in tech because I was unable to take ownership at work. However, this has nothing to do with my belief that women must submit to men and everything to do with the fact that I was just born this way. I’m confident I’d be a submissive femme lesbian if I was a lesbian. Besides, a man who can make all the decisions for me is actually absorbing all my emotional labor. Making my husband dominate me is actually a form of feminist delegation. Don’t kink shame!!! Also, while I call myself a “SAHM” and am the primary childcare provider, I have to be honest about the fact that I do have an income (this Substack, although growth has been abysmal lately, no pressure)

I also like men. No, #notallmen. Some of you are annoying as hell! But in general, I do not believe that otherwise happy relationships between men and women must constantly be examined for their inherently oppressive structures. I do not think (shocker) that having consensual sex with your husband is a form of “emotional labor,” unless you’re doing a role play thing where you have to be a Quizno’s employee dealing with an excessively chatty customer. I think claiming to “hate men” when you still date men is silly. I think some men are bad, but I do not think we need to preemptively assume that baby boys will become rapists. I also think we got a little too spooked about men flirting with women in social settings outside of dating apps. But—and the men yelled at me for this one—I do not think every aspect of men’s sexuality has to be destigmatized. If a man is attracted to a fifteen-year-old, he should probably just keep it to himself and not sexualize her.

I generally think marriage is good. I think sex within marriage is usually more pleasurable than sex with strangers or with fuck-buddies. And I don’t just feel that way based on my own bias and lack of casual sex experience—it’s backed up by real studies that I’ve conducted, and plenty of other ones across the worldwide web. I don’t think every marriage is good, but overwhelmingly I think the “traditional” path of getting married and having kids is not only beneficial for most people, but it’s what most people want anyway. We shouldn’t push people to do this if they don’t want to, but it’s not wrong for us to “assume” that marriage is most people’s default desired state. It just…is.

I feel the same way about gender roles. I think most men and women prefer aspects of their gender roles to some extent, thanks to on-average differences between men and women. Most men do not want to be full-time caretakers. Most women do not want to do demanding physical labor. I think it’s fine to make these generalizations, as long as we don’t impose gender roles, because obviously the average doesn’t account for everyone.

I also have a very strong passion for order and safety, and this is the area where I am frequently maligned as a turbo-fascist (major news to the actual fascists, who can’t stand me). I do not want children—nay, anyone—to step on used needles or trip in a puddle of human diarrhea. (This may seem oddly specific, but I used to live in San Francisco.) I want clean, safe streets. I want clean, safe public transit. I want dogs (but especially pit bulls) leashed and outside of children’s play spaces that have giant “NO DOGS” signs on them (someone once broke this rule to bring his—I kid you not—unleashed pit bull into the kids’ play structure and all the parents looked at me like I was crazy when I grabbed my kid and got the fuck out of there.)

Veering into “why I’m not a Republican” territory, but I must explain: This doesn’t mean I want firing squads, a police state, or even more police presence (I don’t want to defund the police either. I would like a normal amount of police who don’t shoot unarmed people. I know, insane!) My desire for more safety aligns with my more left-coded views about a strong social safety net, more housing, and higher taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy. When I say I’m disturbed by disorder and chaos on public transit and on city streets, I’m saying I want it to be easier for people struggling with severe mental illness to be treated for at a mental health facility (especially if they are too incapacitated to voluntarily choose this)—and currently, those facilities are underfunded and overcrowded, with a high bar to meet for commitment.

And yes, I make fun of wacky leftists sometimes. Hopefully not in a targeted or aggressive way, because I think bullying and harassment is always bad, even when the person “deserves” it for being an idiot. But I’ve noticed that the people who think I “only” make fun of leftists conveniently ignore, or forget, all the times I’ve made fun of wacky right-wingers (Many times. Many such cases, in fact!) When someone (or a group of people) says something I find silly, I want to make fun of it, preferably in a way that doesn’t dogpile on an individual. Funny enough, right-wingers think I only make fun of wacky rightoids too. There are a bunch of men who think my whole schtick is mocking incels. I want to assure you: don’t fight over it. I consider you all completely ridiculous.

You might also notice I’m nice to some conservatives. Some liberals might believe that it’s a liability for me to write things that conservatives sometimes like. I once even lost subscribers for collaborating with a relatively moderate conservative writer on an apolitical topic—funny enough, it was men’s fashion. But I believe bipartisan collaboration, polite debates and spirited discussion is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t require me to promote positions I find reprehensible (I will never, for example, publish a pro-ICE piece). I will criticize Republican politicians, but I’m not going to say everyone who votes for them is an irredeemable sociopath. Many Trump voters were, at one point, Obama voters. I know regretful former Trump voters too. People aren’t defined by their votes. Seeing political “teams” as immutable traits that condemn people to the label of “evil person” is just a bad way to view the world, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.

But here’s why I’m not.

If you came here to get mad at me for being a liberal, or just not your specific type of whatever you are, I will warn you once again: I am a liberal. I also have 50,000 followers, and I cannot possibly be expected to never offend any one of them for being inadequately similar to them on every single topic. What you’re about to read are the reasons why I consider myself a liberal, and if you are very angry at the idea of someone being my type of liberal, I suggest you stop reading now. Consider this a, um, trigger warning.

TW: libbing out

First of all, while I have very traditional ideals for myself in my own personal life (and while I think tradition is, to some extent, a projection of what most people actually prefer) I just don’t think what you do in your personal life, provided it’s legal, is anyone’s business. Bring back the 2004-era Democratic slogan of “I don’t care what you do in your bedroom.” It sounds obvious today, but because some people actually disagree, I support same-sex marriage. I think all LGBTQ people deserve dignity and respect. Admittedly I am not super steeped into LGBTQ activism, but it’s been pretty easy for me to be respectful of people’s genders and orientations.

I can be happy in my monogamous heterosexual marriage and not give a shit if someone wants to be in a polycule that contains no fewer than five genders. I don’t think very many people are well-suited for such an arrangement, nor do I think I need to disclaim “this is valid too” every time I talk about how great marriage is, but I don’t particularly care if people want to live like me or not.

This is often referred to as a “luxury belief” where affluent liberals are accused of preaching anti-traditionalism while being privately traditional. But I disagree. This is just me minding my own business. I don’t lie about my own traditional life. I just don’t care about yours (or your lack of one.)

I draw the line at men opening their marriage up shortly after a baby is born. Straight to jail. Sorry! That’s the fascist in me speaking.

Now, another thing: my beliefs about the social safety net. Admittedly, this is not an area where I’m super knowledgeable, but I think it’s insane that the US is such a wealthy country with such a tremendous poverty problem. I am not a communist, and I do not think everyone must have the same income, or that nobody should ever be rich, or that instead of burritos and bolognese we need to wait in line for GavinBread, but our current degree of wealth inequality is just too extreme. There are people with more money than they could ever spend, and more money than their descendants could ever spend for generations. They could be taxed far more without their lifestyle taking a hit.

I don’t think that all Republicans are cold-hearted villains who believe poor people should be ground into AG1, but I think some Republican voters believe (perhaps with their hearts in the right places) that taking care of the poor should be left up to churches and individuals. I don’t believe that’s enough—and clearly it’s not! There are people working full-time jobs at Amazon warehouses who are homeless. Ideally, nobody would ever be homeless, but it’s especially egregious when major corporations’ employees are.

I think Obamacare was good, and I think universal healthcare would be good, provided there is still a private options, as there is in many European countries. I don’t think cancer, or a newborn in the NICU, should destroy your life savings. I think it’s insane that the United States doesn’t have a federal paid leave policy for parents. I don’t think we need to have unfettered capitalism or Stalinist communism. Most European countries—which are still capitalist, and still beholden to the glorious neoliberal free markets!—have much stronger social safety nets than we do, and I think we should take a cue from them. I also don’t think we need to go full Nordic model to have a fairer, happier society. First of all, it’s never going to happen anyway. lol

As I said before: one benefit of a strong social safety net is that over time, it reduces crime. I don’t think long-term solutions are enough because some violent crimes will happen even with them in place, but they cannot be ignored. If your attitude toward the poor is, “fuck you, losers” you can’t in good faith do shocked Pikachu face when poor kids get involved with crime because they have no other way of making money. My gripe with many Democratic candidates is they often only focus on the long-term solutions, and many of them are still tainted by paying lip service to “defund the police” in 2020. But many Republican politicians aren’t focused on long-term crime solutions at all, because they actually don’t care.

And by the way, remember when I said that homeless people who are so severely mentally ill that they can’t take care of themselves should be institutionalized? Well, who is going to pay for institutions to treat and take care of these people to keep them safe and off the streets? So far, I haven’t seen any Republican politician talking about funding mental health facilities, outside of right after a school shooting for about ten minutes.

I know that a common strawman is that women are stupid for voting blue, because Democratic politicians want our streets to look like The Purge. Some right wingers (the more maladapted ones, I assume) will see a news story about a woman stabbed to death in Manhattan and start jeering because she probably voted Democrat, so she deserved it. But the vast majority of Democratic politicians aren’t radical anarchists. In fact, if you talk to a real leftist (not a liberal) they will accuse Democratic politicians of being carceral fascists. A bunch of leftists tried to sabotage Kamala Harris by calling her a “cop!” I understand that to a right-winger, the Democratic Party might look like a pro-crime, anti-police free-for-all, and I agree those people exist and need to shut up, but there is a huge difference between the crime policy of RedGuardAnus69 on Twitter and the crime policy of a Democratic governor.

Another thing that should not be political but unfortunately is: I am pro-vaccine, especially when it comes to sterilizing vaccines for nearly-eradicated diseases like measles. I acknowledge vaccine side effects happen, but I think the benefits way outweigh the risks. This is true not only for your child, but for all the other children out there who cannot be vaccinated. If your child gets measles before the age of one, for example, there is a 1 in 600 chance that up to ten years later they will die slowly from a neurodegenerative disease called SSPE. The only way to protect these children is for everyone else to vaccinate against measles.

Also, the FUCKITY FUCK MANGO MUSSOLINI YAM TITS! Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. But Trump is a huge part of why I’m not a Republican, albeit not the only part. And look, I like Trump as a reality show character! I love a good Trump impression! But I don’t like him as President, and “never-Trump Republicans” are basically just centrists these days. Not liking Trump genuinely is enough to make you “not a Republican.”

Maybe you agree with some of Trump’s policies, and I’m not going to argue about those (not because I secretly agree, but because I won’t be able to convince you) but Trump is unambiguously an authoritarian. He’s jokingly called himself a dictator, and that’s a thing he does—he jokes about something repeatedly, then tries to do it, and then if it fails he says he was kidding or denies ever saying it. While I don’t think we are at any risk of him repealing the 19th or “outlawing elections,” he is doing similar things in more subtle ways, like the SAVE act, which will conveniently make it much harder for married women to vote. I have seen his followers actively endorsing dictator fantasies, some going so far as to advocate for concentration camps for political dissidents. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen—I’m not a fan of hyperbolic “despair signaling,” as I wrote before. But the fact that some Trump supporters endorse it is…telling, I guess. It’s also telling that the most radical right-wingers, who openly call themselves fascists, tend to defend Trump, while the most radical left-wingers tend to spend all their waking moments criticizing whoever the most powerful Democrat is.

Trump’s attempts to deny the 2020 election and alter voter counts in Georgia is, as far as I’m concerned, disqualifying. Say what you will about Mitt Romney and John McCain, but they lost gracefully. Trump has messed with the idea of free and fair elections in ways that no other president ever has. Remember Sydney Powell, Michael Flynn and that whole band of loonies with their “digital soldiers” attempting to overturn the 2020 election despite all 63 attempts with the Supreme Court being unsuccessful? I’m almost happy Trump won fair and square in 2024, because a close election could have been so much worse. He has shown an unprecedented disregard for the peaceful transition of power. I think all the resist libs hyperventilating and claiming he’s going to enact martial law for ten straight years have maybe numbed us into thinking he actually poses no danger at all. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t already done awful things that destabilized our country and our election process. And it doesn’t mean he can’t do more in the next couple years.

Trump has governed this country like a mafia boss (and genuinely, I think he’d have been really good as a mafia boss—like, it’s the second-most suitable job for him, after catty celeb gossip talk show host.) During the pandemic, Trump threatened to withhold relief funds from blue states or other political adversaries. So many other Republicans have spoken out against Trump, only to be forced to kiss the ring. Marco Rubio (now one of Trump’s second hand men) called him “dangerous” and “a con artist.” Ted Cruz called him a “pathological liar” and urged voters to vote their conscience at the 2016 RNC. And even J.D. Vance once called Trump “America’s Hitler,” although if you look at his Twitter mutuals, he might have meant it as a compliment.

You might wonder if it’s worth switching teams once Trump can’t run for office again, but at this point, I don’t see any future of the Republican party that isn’t still spiritually kissing Trump’s ass. And as I just outlined, I have plenty of non-Trump reasons not to vote Republican.

Last but not least—although this is a really big one—ICE. The terror wrought by ICE has presented a human rights crisis, to the point that I have actually seen lifelong Republicans turn away from Trump over it. Remember, while it makes sense to enforce immigration law, illegal immigration is a civil offense, not a criminal one. ICE should not be entering schools and traumatizing children, or separating families. ICE should not be deporting parents without due process and sending their children into foster care. No, really, a woman boarded her flight back to Venezuela, expecting to see her toddler there, but was then told her toddler was just staying in the US foster care system for…reasons. It’s hard to see this as a parent and not feel strongly about it, but this particular story never picked up much traction. (While DHS insists, without proof, that the parents were part of a criminal organization and they “rescued” the little girl, the child was eventually returned to Venezuela to be with her mother.)

Trump has leveraged ICE as a personal militia and done so with impunity. It’s outrageous, for example, that the government of Minnesota was legally unable to do anything to stop ICE’s brutal tactics on the streets of Minneapolis. I’m concerned about ICE being used against political adversaries or to terrorize swing voters. ICE has killed innocent people, detained US citizens, and even sent non-criminals, such as a gay makeup artist, to horrific and inhumane prisons in El Salvador without due process to endure horrific abuses including rape, with no specific sentence end-date. It’s one thing to believe immigration law should be enforced—and again, that’s a civil matter. It’s another thing to believe that recruiting a bunch of angry young men without real qualifications other than mooning people is the way to do it.

In Conclusion

I’m still a Democrat. I probably always will be, unless some other party emerges that is conveniently exactly my version of liberalism. That doesn’t mean I hate Republican voters (if you’re a Republican voter who got this far without hate-reading, I appreciate it) or that I don’t sometimes break from the standard liberal views. In some ways, I am to the left of many Democratic politicians, and in other ways, less so. But since people keep asking me, I thought I’d elaborate—for now, I’m still libbing the fuck out.