The Water's Warm

I get that it's hard for most sensible and ethical people to overlook the fact that Trump is a shady and often delusional businessman, a crook, and a failed tyrant. I understand the discomfort with some of his more troubling supporters. But hear me out.

The Visionaries Around Him

The fact is that Trump is more of a democrat than most Democrats I know, and he's surrounded himself with visionaries like Elon Musk and RFK Jr—who are themselves not-that-moderate former Democrats. The Democratic Party abandoned people like Elon and RFK Jr because they were "kooky," which is what the Democratic institution does to people who don't fall in line: they assassinate their character, make ad hominem attacks, and appeal to the masses. And that tends to actually work.

I was personally offended multiple times during this last election year by people I love and consider smart when they immediately dismissed RFK Jr as "kooky." It hurt because it made me feel like I must be kooky for even considering him as a viable candidate. Not only because that claim simply does not track with reality, but because I deeply long for the future he and Elon are committed to building—and everyone should be. If you don't see why, read the rest of this article before you dismiss me too.

Single-Issue Voting and False Dichotomies

Single-issue voting has basically eroded all critical thinking. The abortion debate is a false dichotomy that frames legalized abortion as the only means to female bodily autonomy.

Let me ask you: Why are abortions such a prevalent thing? Why are women getting raped so much? Why are we overlooking these questions and focusing solely on the abortion issue? Shouldn't we be striving to eliminate rape, period, full stop? Shouldn't we have technology that allows us to only have children when it's our intention to do so? We are landing rockets on their tails, vertically—but we can't solve that?

A Higher Bar

Can we change the narrative around these issues to simply have a higher bar for the life we live?

We have the technology to make energy literally free, infinitely, via solar power and energy storage. We have robots. Does no one realize the basic math here? Let me break it down:

Infinite Energy + Robots = Abundance of everything physical.

Limitless food. Limitless housing. Limitless transportation. Limitless toys. Your whole life could be a matter of asking questions, enjoying the satisfying process of finding answers, doing art, creating, and procreating. That's it—no work, no stress about where food comes from, no stress about paying rent.

All of these problems are ones we technologically evolved past a while ago, but have socially been unable to move toward. Our systems of thinking are old and outdated, probably because most of us are stuck in patterns borrowed from headlines and social media feeds rather than thinking from first principles. We're recycling ideas we've heard rather than reasoning through them ourselves.

Is This Anti-Democratic?

I recently read this tweet:

A senator told me that the rumor on the Hill is that Elon Musk is threatening to fund a primary challenge to any House Republican who doesn't fall in line with Trump's agenda.

Does that sound anti-democratic? Perhaps. But ask yourself if you really want to count the vote of people who refuse to recognize and work toward that abundant future.

Our leadership should be racing—literally falling over themselves—to change laws so that our tax dollars and capital are allocated in ways that make energy infinite, accelerate robot adoption, and make hunger and housing insecurity systematically obsolete, for good.

If Democrats jumped across the aisle and started voting for that, instead of single issues like abortion (which shouldn't need to be such a pressing concern if you follow the logic above), then we could split the Republican Party into those who support abortion access and those who don't—but everyone would be aligned on the priority of our government: building that abundant future.

RFK Jr's Actually Democratic Policies

It's not as bad as it seems on the other side of the aisle. I'm a lifelong Democrat who just jumped in. The water's warm! And it's more democratic than the Democratic Party.

Consider RFK Jr, who campaigned on policies that end institutional racism by investing in communities—effectively subsidizing generational wealth for underserved populations. That's a strong democratic ideal that not a single "Democrat" has talked about in a long time.

When I took AP Civics and attended Harvard Model Congress in 2009, those were the types of issues that made Democrats magnanimous. They were inherently truth-seeking, smart, forward-thinking, and presented solutions that could actually address the heart of issues.

Other examples: converting prisons into places that actually aim to rehabilitate people, and removing Monsanto and Purdue executives from the boards of the FDA and USDA.

The Water's Warm

The Democratic Party has lost its way, driven by fear and perpetuated by false dichotomies. It has abandoned the ideals that once made it the party of progress and critical thinking.

If you're still a Democrat, I'd ask you to consider that you might not be fighting for the future you think you are. You may be inadvertently slowing down the very progress you want to see.

I'm not asking you to abandon your values. I'm asking you to take a fresh look at who's actually working toward the future we all want—infinite energy, abundance for all, an end to systemic poverty, and institutions that serve people instead of corporations.

The water's warm over here. Come see for yourself.