[UnpossibleJim]

>>In any case, it's pretty silly to blame the party that's on your side<<

Not to be a complete downer, but there is so much special interest money involved in our political system, neither the Democrats or the Republicans are on your side. They are both on the moneyed interest side. These political footballs are, for the most part, to string along voters on "hot button" issues to keep the public disinterested on the numerous things that these parties actually agree on, like expanded military spending, global expansionism, corporate tax reduction, lessening monopoly laws, reducing banking restrictions, reducing spending on interstate infrastructure, cutting education spending and restricting the ability for fair and equal elections through redistricting. All of these (and more I can't think of) are bipartisan efforts.

Sorry... I shouldn't watch the news. It's a bummer =)

[GeneralMayhem]

If you believe in cannabis legalization, which is what this thread is about, then one party is very obviously on your side on that issue, and one is very obviously not. But sure, let's go through the list, just for fun.

> expanded military spending

Democrats don't really vote for this, certainly not to the same degree, but sure, I wish there were more difference.

> global expansionism

Vague to the point of meaninglessness.

> corporate tax reduction

Definitely not the same. Democrats recently pushed for a minimum corporate tax (https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-corporate-tax-plan-th...).

> lessening monopoly laws

Also vague, but not generally true. Democrats will vote for actual antitrust legislation; they won't vote for the Republicans using "anti-trust" as a meaningless scare-word to bash businesses they don't like for unrelated reasons.

> reducing banking restrictions

Maybe in the 90s, but not recently. Who wrote the Dodd-Frank Act, and who repealed it?

> reducing spending on interstate infrastructure

Vague, but not generally true. There are a bunch of major transportation projects (e.g. California HSR, DC's Purple Line) that have been held up for ages because Democrats will vote to fund them and then Republicans will take it away, or because it's impossible to get Republican states/counties to pay their fair share. For telecomms, Democrats will tend to push more for equitable-access programs, whereas Republicans will frame corporate tax cuts as "infrastructure spending" as long as some infrastructure-related companies benefit. Go look at the numbers and priorities in the 2021 infrastructure bill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_...), which passed on mostly party lines, and tell me the parties agree on cutting infrastructure spending.

> cutting education spending

Laughably false. Go look at the per-student education budget per state. (Federal DoE spending YoY is kind of weird because it's washed out by college loan financing; most direct spending on education is at the state level.)

> restricting the ability for fair and equal elections through redistricting

Seriously, you're going to sit there and argue, in the year 2022, that the parties are the same on election fairness? The fact that the Democrats don't aggressively gerrymander is why they don't currently hold the House - the New York legislature could have chopped up Long Island differently to stem the losses. More generally, Democrats consistently vote for protecting ballot access, against Republicans who nakedly want to make it more difficult to vote - and that's setting aside the whole armed-insurrection-to-overthrow-an-election thing, which, last I checked, 90% of the Republican party will still fall in line for.