Your most dearly-held political belief suddenly no longer matters to you. If you were ardently pro-choice, you now don’t care about abortion. Same if you were ardently pro-life. If you believed all guns should be rounded up and destroyed or if you believed every American should have a gun to hand at all time, suddenly, you barely remember what a gun even is. Whatever THE issue has been, it doesn’t matter any longer. But you’re left with all of your other beliefs and issues. (In other words, this is a magical hypothetical! If it’s easier, imagine just that all of the parties agree with you about that one, single issue.)
After taking away that one, biggest issue, is your political alignment the same as it was?
My biggest single issue would be climate change. But if the climate weren’t in any danger of disastrous change, or if I believed that (true or not), or if I just didn’t give a damn about it, there’s still everything else that makes me a Democrat.
My overarching meta-issue is that I want what works best for the vast majority of people over the long haul. The GOP has stopped even pretending to give a shit about that, so I’m a Democrat in pretty much any alternate universe.
Nope. Still a libertarian socialist in theory, a liberal Democrat in practice. At that would be true even if I dropped or even switched any one of my 3 most strongly-held political beliefs (accessible abortion on demand/equal treatment for all genders, orientations, colors, creeds and religions under the law/first amendment rights are good and should be protected)
Yowza! really? Am I misinterpreting what this means or something?
As to the OP, I don’t really have one issue that is more important to me than all the others. And I’m further to the left on most things than the Democratic Party, so even if I dropped one, I’d still be a lib on everything else (and vote Dem, even though they are far from perfect, in my opinion). So, no, it wouldn’t change for me.
It’s funny, Shodan, because it’s the same exact belief that keeps me from voting for Republicans.
If Republicans weren’t so hung up on trying to convince America that I shouldn’t have the right to marry my boyfriend, that they didn’t care if we have consensual sex, etc., I’d be a lot more likely to vote for Republicans who are serious about reducing our deficit.
It’s sad that the party for limited government is so entirely intrusive in the one issue that matters most to me.
I don’t want to hijack the thread, but could you explain it with a few more sentences? I’m imagining some Wrinkle In Time dystopian future thing where everyone must be exactly the same, and I wouldn’t support that either, except it bears no resemblance to our current political landscape.
ETA: what I mean is, I’m against forcing everyone to be equal, obviously, but hoping for equality… isn’t that a good thing? And if it isn’t to you, that deeply confuses me. That is pretty much my ideal, and I don’t see how that’s wrong, but I’m interested in learning your point of view.
Even if I didn’t care about education, I’d still be in favor of environmental protections, gay rights, social safety nets, freedom of speech, and peace. So, yeah, I’d still be a Democrat.
I firmly believe that people don’t and shouldn’t get credit for aspirations. They have to actually perform. And since people possess the capability to better themselves, it’s nonsense to think that no one is better than anyone else- how can we be equal if I was equal to you last year, but I improved myself this year and you didn’t?
And since people do not exert equal amounts of effort, they do not reap equal benefits, nor do they deserve to.
So there you go. Some people are better than others, and they deserve to be. Since people do not behave like clones, society should not strive for equality.
Since everyone else is fleshing their beliefs out, I will also elaborate (like it needs elaboration).
My single issue is gun rights. In the past 6 years I have voted for far more Democrats than Republicans, including Obama and Bob Casey on the national level. One might think that would go against my interests, but I couldn’t in good conscience vote for the Republican candidates. I am, and remain, unaffiliated with the parties, and there is nothing that I can think of that would make me join one of them except perhaps if I ran for office (unlikely) in which case I would have to whore myself out to one of them to have even a remote chance of winning.
The bottom line is that my single issue does not stop me from voting my conscience. Fortunately for me, gun control is largely a dead issue so I don’t have to feel as though I am compromising my position. If only we could all be so lucky.
I have no respect for single issue voters. I think that every single sentence or conversation about abortion or gun rights is just a tactic to focus the attention of the masses away from things that really could change and make a meaningful difference in American life. Those types of topics are the porn of American political debate and shouldn’t be shown on prime-time TV. However, they have instant attraction to ignorant people and distract their attention everything else and that is why the trick is used so commonly.
My absolute most important goal is the economic security of the U.S. as a whole. Everything else we know and love follows from that. I think that my moderate libertarian beliefs help foster conditions that allow the U.S. to prosper. Neither party is doing a great job on that front and there is no party that represents me fully although I tend to ally myself with moderate libertarian Republicans but I am an Independent.
There is no single issue other than a radical shift in economic policy that would make me change my vote for any candidate that I mostly agreed with otherwise.