You cannot be a Republican in 2023 and be a decent person. To be a Republican in 2023 means you accept sitting down at the table with those who tried to overthrow the election with violence. That’s not even touching the party’s policies that do harm to queers and other minorities, or inaction on climate change, or what have you. It is a thoroughly rotten party, and membership in 2023 is as damning as certain armbands would have been in the 30s.
Secondly, if you “ditched the labels” people would immediately reinvent them. People aren’t going to enumerate their belief set in full every time. They’ll find groups of like minded people and give it a name. The labels exist because they are useful, not as a comic force imposed on people.
You cannot be a Republican in 2023 and be a decent person. To be a Republican in 2023 means you accept sitting down at the table with those who tried to overthrow the election with violence. That’s not even touching the party’s policies that do harm to queers and other minorities, or inaction on climate change, or what have you. It is a thoroughly rotten party, and membership in 2023 is as damning as certain armbands would have been in the 30s.
Secondly, if you “ditched the labels” people would immediately reinvent them. People aren’t going to enumerate their belief set in full every time. They’ll find groups of like minded people and give it a name. The labels exist because they are useful, not as a comic force imposed on people.