Somewhere along the way, “liberal” and "democrat" turned into a cartoon. People hear the words and immediately attach a whole list of beliefs to you before you’ve even opened your mouth. So let me make this simple. Here’s what people assume I believe, and what I actually believe.
What you think I want: free stuff for people who won’t work.
What I actually want: a full-time job to pay enough for someone to actually live. If you work 40 hours a week, you shouldn’t need a second job, a GoFundMe, food stamps, and a credit card just to keep the lights on and groceries in the refrigerator. And taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize the payroll of billion-dollar corporations because those companies refuse to pay their employees enough to survive. Work should mean something. A paycheck should cover more than the gas it took to get to work.
What you think I want: Obamacare forever, no questions asked.
What I actually want: people to be able to go to a doctor without wondering whether the appointment is going to bankrupt them. I don’t want someone rationing insulin because rent is due. I don’t want a mother ignoring a lump because she can’t afford the deductible. I don’t want families losing everything they spent decades building because somebody got cancer. Fix the ACA. Replace it. Build something completely different if somebody has a better idea. I genuinely do not care whose name is attached to it or which party gets credit. I care whether people can actually get healthcare when they need it.
What you think I want: your money handed to strangers.
What I actually want: a tax system where working people aren’t carrying a heavier burden while people and corporations with extraordinary wealth have armies of accountants finding ways around theirs. I’ll pay taxes. Roads cost money. Schools cost money. Fire departments cost money. Veterans’ services cost money. Clean water, infrastructure, emergency services and hospitals cost money. I just want to know that what we contribute is building the country we actually live in instead of disappearing into corporate subsidies, sweetheart deals and programs designed to benefit people who already have more than they could spend in ten lifetimes.
What you think I want: to take your guns.
What I actually want: background checks that work, responsible gun ownership, safe storage and the laws already on the books actually enforced. I believe people have a right to protect themselves. I also believe children have a right to sit in algebra class without practicing how to hide from a gunman. Those two things do not have to be mutually exclusive. You can keep your hunting rifle. I would like parents to stop having to wonder whether the last thing they said at morning drop-off will be the last thing their child ever hears from them.
What you think I want: to shut down your church.
What I actually want: your faith to belong to you, exactly the way mine belongs to me. Pray at home. Pray at school. Pray at the ballpark. Wear your cross. Read your Bible. Raise your children in your faith. Go to church every Sunday and Wednesday if that brings meaning to your life. I am not threatened by your religion. I simply don’t believe your interpretation of your religion should become a law that everyone else is forced to live under. Religious freedom has to include freedom for people whose religion looks different from yours, and for people who have no religion at all.
What you think I want: special rights for gay and trans people.
What I actually want: the same rights everyone else expects without having to think about them. The ability to work, rent a home, marry the person you love, raise a family, walk into a business and live your life without constantly wondering whether somebody thinks your existence should be up for debate. Not extra rights. Not special treatment. The same basic dignity and legal protection everybody wants for themselves.
What you think I want: open borders.
What I actually want: an immigration system that functions. Yes, secure the border. Yes, know who is entering the country. Yes, remove people who genuinely pose a danger. But we are capable of enforcing immigration law without abandoning every ounce of humanity in the process. Children should not be treated like criminals because of decisions made by adults. Families should not disappear into a system nobody can navigate. People seeking asylum should be able to make their case. We are one of the most powerful countries on Earth. Surely we can protect a border and still behave like decent human beings.
What you think I want: government in every corner of your life.
What I actually want: someone making sure the water coming out of my faucet isn’t poisonous, the meat at the grocery store isn’t contaminated, the medication in my cabinet contains what the label says it contains, the baby formula is safe, the airline maintained the plane, the nursing home isn’t neglecting grandma and the bridge I drive across every morning isn’t being held together by hope. Regulations aren’t supposed to exist just to annoy businesses. Many of them exist because at some point somebody got hurt, poisoned, exploited or killed before anyone decided a rule was necessary. Companies exist to make money. That doesn’t make companies evil. But it does mean somebody has to make sure profit isn’t the only consideration when public safety is on the line.
What you think I want: everyone walking around terrified of offending somebody.
What I actually want: basic manners. That’s it. If somebody tells you their name, use it. If somebody tells you what they would like to be called, make an effort. You don’t have to understand every part of somebody else’s life to treat them with respect. We somehow understood this when our parents taught us not to deliberately humiliate people. I’m not sure when basic courtesy became a political ideology.
What you think I want: women treated like victims.
What I actually want: women treated like adults. Pay them the same for the same work. Believe that they are capable of making decisions about their own futures, their own families and their own bodies. Take sexual harassment and assault seriously. Stop asking women what they were wearing, why they were drinking, why they trusted him, why they went upstairs, why they stayed, why they didn’t report sooner or why they reported at all. Accountability for the person who caused the harm should not require putting the person who survived it on trial first.
What you think I want: to punish coal miners, oil workers and people whose livelihoods depend on industries that are changing.
What I actually want: those workers brought along instead of discarded. Energy markets change. Technology changes. Entire industries have changed throughout American history. Telling somebody whose family has worked in the same industry for three generations to “just learn something else” is insulting. If we are serious about transitioning parts of our economy, then training, apprenticeships, pensions, wages and jobs in those communities have to be part of the conversation. You don’t save the environment by destroying a town and telling everyone who lives there to figure it out.
What you think I want: people who make bad choices to never face consequences.
What I actually want: accountability that is proportional, fair and consistent. I believe violent people should be held accountable. I also believe one stupid mistake at 18 shouldn’t automatically destroy somebody’s ability to work, rent an apartment or build a life at 38. Justice should protect victims, punish serious wrongdoing and still recognize that rehabilitation is possible. Those ideas can exist together.
What you think I want: police abolished and criminals running the streets.
What I actually want: good officers protected, trained and supported, bad officers held accountable, departments properly staffed, mental-health professionals available where appropriate and communities able to trust the people policing them. Accountability is not anti-police. In any profession where someone has enormous authority over another human being, standards should be high precisely because the job matters.
What you think I want: everybody to get the exact same outcome.
What I actually want: people to have a fair chance at getting somewhere. I don’t expect life to produce identical results. People make different choices, have different abilities and take different risks. But your ZIP code at birth shouldn’t decide whether your school has textbooks. A disability shouldn’t mean poverty is inevitable. Being born into a struggling family shouldn’t make climbing out nearly impossible while somebody else starts ten floors above you and insists you both ran the same race.
And when I say I’m concerned about authoritarianism, it isn’t because my preferred candidate lost an election or because I expect to agree with every administration. I expect disagreement in a democracy. That is democracy. My concern begins when loyalty to one person becomes more important than loyalty to institutions, when criticism is treated like betrayal, when independent journalism is attacked simply for being critical, when political opponents are described as enemies who must be punished, when checks and balances are treated as obstacles instead of safeguards, and when people begin arguing that constitutional limits should disappear whenever those limits become inconvenient.
You don’t have to agree with me about every policy to understand why those things matter.
None of this feels radical to me.
I believe working people should be able to survive on their wages. Sick people should be able to see a doctor. Children should be safe at school. Women should control their own lives. Gay and trans people should have the same legal protections everybody else expects. Immigrants should be treated like human beings while immigration laws are enforced. Businesses should make money without poisoning people, exploiting workers or destroying communities. People should be free to practice their religion without forcing it onto somebody else. Government officials should answer to the public, and nobody should become so powerful that accountability no longer applies to them.
And underneath all of it is one very simple belief: a country should not be measured only by how wealthy or powerful it is. It should also be measured by what happens to people when they are sick, poor, elderly, disabled, abused, displaced, struggling or simply born without the advantages somebody else had.
If we genuinely cannot help, that is one conversation.
But when we have the money, resources, knowledge and ability to reduce suffering and simply decide not to, that is something different.
That is a choice.
I would rather we make a better one.
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LINK to All My Arrest Trump Merchandise:
Eight of the Top Ten States with the Highest Murder Rates are Republican states... The GOP Crazy Gun Laws Cause Death!
Look at our state of California vs. states controlled by Republican governors. Take Texas and Florida as random examples.
California, lower murder rates per capita than Texas and Florida.
California, lower violent crime and property crime rate per capita than Texas and Florida.
California, almost two-times lower gun death rate than Texas and Florida.
As Democrats, we watch these culture wars take shape on the right and we’re constantly on the defense, regardless of the facts.
It’s time to take it to the Republicans on this issue.
Because it is the laws and policies in states led by Republican governors that contribute to higher per capita violent crime and murder rates than states led by their Democratic counterparts.
Thank you,
Gavin Newsom
President Biden's Accomplishments So Far...
Signed the Inflation Reduction Act
Improved health care for veterans
Signed the CHIPS and Science Act
Took historic action to address the gun violence epidemic
Restored American leadership on the world stage
Ended America’s longest war
Took action to address gender-based violence
Passed the American Rescue Plan
Biggest year of job growth in American history
Took action to combat COVID-19
Passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Took action to combat the climate crisis and reduce emissions
Expanded health care to millions of Americans
Nominated and confirmed historic judicial nominees
Took big steps toward a future made in America
Pardoned Marijuana Prisoners
The Red State Murder Problem...
- The rate of murders in the US has gone up at an alarming rate. But, despite a media narrative to the contrary, this is a problem that afflicts Republican-run cities and states as much or more than the Democratic bastions.
- In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.
- 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.
Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones:
I'm Looking Forward to the TrumpNiks® CIVIL WAR... The USA Will Win and We Will Arrest About 10,000 Traitors for Treason... Wonderful! We Have Already Locked UP 910 Insurrectionists for Failing to Overthrow the USA on January 6th... and More Arrests are Coming!
#ArrestTrump - Contact the DOJ and Tell 'em to Enforce The Law! #LockHimUP - Here's the Link to Email the Department of Justice.
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