Politics

In my twenties, I went furniture shopping with my husband. We were trying to pick out a new bookcase because we had thousands of books and there were never enough shelves.

He hated all the bookcases I liked and I hated all the bookcases he liked. We couldn't agree on anything.

So I finally asked him why he liked or disliked particular models and his sole metric was sturdiness for supporting the weight of the books. My sole metric was attractiveness.

After determining we had two different metrics by which we judged things, it was possible to find a shelf we both liked. It was possible to find a shelf that met both criteria.

Attractiveness isn't inherently antithetical to sturdiness. Sturdiness isn't inherently antithetical to attractiveness.

These are not opposites that directly cancel each other out and cannot coexist.

The US currently has an incompetent and corrupt president whose name is in the Epstein Files and who is apparently starting wars to line the pockets of his wholly unethical children. We clearly don't have a healthy political system.

But in a healthy political system, Republican and Democrat shouldn't be polar opposites with inherently antithetical positions.

I read descriptions of what they supposedly stand for and I'm like "I'm for both those things and I don't understand why this is a problem."

Pro environment and pro business aren't antithetical. It's not inherently good for business to destroy the environment nor bad for the environment to foster business.