See Me Squeegee

Suppose you typically get home an hour or so before your spouse or roommate, and in that time you’ve seen at least 30 ants roaming around your kitchen.  That spouse/roommate comes in and you point that out: “hey in the last hour I’ve seen at least 30 ants – we should think about calling an exterminator.”  Which of the following would you say are appropriate responses from your spouse/roommate:

(A) Wow, but exterminators are expensive. Can we try giving the kitchen a thorough clean to get rid of crumbs and food residue, and maybe figure out where they’re coming from and those areas with some bug spray?

(B) You know, we live in a condo with shared walls, so before we do anything with an exterminator let’s talk to the neighbors.  Maybe they’ll share the cost with us, or maybe they’re doing something that’s just shifting the problem to us.

(C) I’m just not sure we can afford an exterminator right now with all the other projects we have going on.  Can we talk about how to best prioritize our budget the next few months?

(D) You didn’t see any ants.  There aren’t any ants.

(E) I forbid you to ever say the word “ant” in this house again.

If you’re a normal, reasonable person, A, B, and C sound fairly valid and D and E sound like grounds for divorce or moving out, right?

Here’s why I’m a Democrat: Democrats’ answers to real-world societal problems are generally in the A/B/C neighborhood, while Republicans frequently and vehemently choose D and E, over and over again.  For example:

• GOP leaders in the federal government and in prominent state governments have banned the use of the terms “global warming” and “climate change.”
• The GOP has famously prohibited the Center for Disease Control from even researching gun violence.
• This past December, when every economic analysis suggested that their tax plan would increase the deficit and not stimulate the economy, Republican legislators pushed it through anyway, many of them even admitting they hadn’t read it.

And when they don’t go the ignore/deny/refuse-to-research route, the Republican response is often akin to:

(F) I’m going to spray the hell out of every surface in out kitchen with maximum-strength bug spray.  Wait, you say, but might there be potentially catastrophic results from coating everything we use to prepare and eat food with a layer of poison?  I don’t have time for your candy-pants worrying – these ants deserve to die and I’m going to take care of it myself.

Hopefully at least one of these doesn’t involve a 15-year, several-trillion-dollar war…

Sound like hyperbole?  Well how about:

• The Iraq war and the GOP’s move to rename “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries” when France – correctly, as history has shown – chose not to join in.
• Separating asylum-seeking parents from their children (who were then caged), in a deliberately cruel fashion to deter future such asylum-seekers from approaching the border.

The Republican response to problems is, whenever possible, “who do we fight?” or “who do we put in jail?”  Drug addiction is a problem, but thanks to GOP policies we’ve been fighting a highly-militarized “war on drugs” for decades without making a dent in it.  The aforementioned Iraq war, you could argue, was a war in search of a reason (WMDs, the stated purpose, has been disproven over and over again). Same for immigration: yes, there are illegal immigrants and sure, there are gangs (including MS-13) that include illegal immigrants, but ICE raids on law-abiding doctors and parents, among others, are like using a grenade in your kitchen to get rid of a few ants.

The aggressive, militaristic, “zero tolerance” response may be the right one in some cases, but in many it’s overly-expensive, it adds more violence than it prevents, and it overlooks nuanced, innovative approaches that would be much more effective.  For example, forcing welfare recipients to work might seem to avoid a freeloader problem, but it’s also costly for the government and leaves welfare families with extra costs for childcare and transportation.  Militarizing the war on drugs has led to the massive costs of mass incarceration, plus all the negative effects that that mass incarceration has had on children growing up with parents in jail.

So what do I want?  I want grownup solutions to real problems.  “Lock them up” or “build a wall,” as we’ve learned, make for great bumper stickers and chants, but I believe that solving complex problems often involves solutions that are a little too complicated to make for a catchy chant or hashtag.  I want elected officials who embrace expertise, who seek out information on solutions that are working in other countries, who aren’t afraid to try “counterintuitive” policies if they’ve proven to work elsewhere.  For example, solving the opioid crisis might just involve making “supervised injection sites” available, where the addicted can use drugs in a supervised, safe environment that takes away the dangers of overdose and the criminal element of drug use.  Is it a little counterintuitive to say “solve the drug problem by giving people drugs?”  Sure, but if it saves lives, keeps communities safer and cleaner from the unsavory/criminal element of drugs, then why not give it a try?  “Just say no” and “lock them up” isn’t working (unless you own a privatized prison) so why not try unique solutions that have worked in other countries?

I want a government that solicits and trusts the opinions of scientists and other experts, that’s guided by analysis and results and not empty, slogan-friendly principles.  I want a government that looks at issues upon which we’re statistically among the worst in the world – healthcare costs, gun violence, mass incarceration – and looks for solutions as opposed to doubling-down on rhetoric.  And I want to identify actual problems to solve as opposed to creating issues out of nowhere that will somehow poll well with the base: illegal immigration just isn’t a source of rampant crime, but the deportation of longtime residents is something that breaks up families and divides communities.

I’m a Democrat because Democrats identify real problems that face everyday Americans and look for solutions – both those that fit on a bumper sticker and those that require an extensive white paper full of peer-reviewed studies – to address those problems.  And I’m a Democrat because currently they’re the only party that does that.  If there are ants or other pests that have infiltrated my house, there are a variety of solutions I should investigate before I arrive at an effective and cost-effective decision, and none of those solutions involve ignoring the situation while I yell about Hillary Clinton’s emails.