“This meme shows what evil bastards Republicans are.”  [LIKE] [SHARE]

It’s this sort of attitude that’s what’s wrong with America today. It’s horribly counterproductive. Your meme will never convince the unconvinced; all it does is make the Democrat feel smug without compelling them to do anything whatsoever.

I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t re-post a particular meme here, even for illustrative purposes.  I will, however, list the anti-conservative indictments and dissect them.

1. Chemical spills are due to Republican de-regulation
2. If there were gun control, nobody would shoot up schools and malls.
3. A single mother needs to work 60 hours and can’t pay the rent because the minimum wage is too low.
4. Republicans hate abortion but don’t care if you die after you’re born, which is why they’re trying to tear down the ACA.

Chemical spills are accidental. Republicans don’t cause them. They aren’t out there like the Joker, poisoning the reservoir to cause chaos and fear and fun fun death. Certainly there’s pressure from citizens for deregulation, in large part because people don’t understand the regulations and the purposes behind them. Having read more than my share, I can tell you that’s not surprising. It’s also quite true that many regulations are punitive, deeply corrupt, and support only those businesses that contribute to one party or the other, or bribe the right person. I once read a government contract for chocolate chip cookies that was quite illustrative; it stipulated not only the recipe and chocolate chip density and composition but also the shape and colors of the corporate logo on the wrapper.  But not the name; oh no, that would be forcing it to go to Nabisco.  That would be illegal.

Violent rampages can’t be prevented except by the most draconic gun control measure: mass confiscation combined with a heavily armed and ubiquitous police force. Which, incidentally, wouldn’t rid us of guns, though it would reduce their accessibility by the average citizen.  Incidentally:  One in five non-suicide gun deaths involve cops.

The federal minimum wage needs to be raised, and desperately. In some states it needs to be raised more than in others; fortunately, states have the ability to do this for themselves.  Also fortunately, those states vote Democrat. However, we also need national rent control of some sort, because the moment the wage goes up, rent rises to meet it. Solve that problem without causing market chaos and writing an unconstitutional law and you’ll get broad bi-partisan opposition, because — forget vote-losers:  this is the ultimate donation-loser.  And how can you do a billion dollar ad buy without those upper-middle-class outrage donations?

And the ACA was designed to be an impracticable law. It needs to be removed and replaced, one small bit at a time, by Medicare For All. (Do it all at once and there’s depression, rioting, blood in the streets, and citizens storming the hospitals. However, I do have a plan.)

But don’t misunderstand me: I’m not defending Republicans here.

I’m saying that if you actually care about these things, you need to do something about them. YOU.

Get involved in local politics.  Join a protest.  Volunteer for a candidate.  Donate — not to some nebulous meme factory or a faceless party, but to a candidate.  When was the last time you even wrote a Senator? (Not a call; they ignore calls. Not an email either. A letter. With a stamp. Postmarked from their constituency. Better yet, send a telegram; they actually care about those.)  And don’t do just one of these; do them all.  Or shut your damned mouth and admit you’re the problem.

A meme won’t fix a single damned thing.  It’ll just let you feel good about doing nothing.

But I won’t.