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Haves and have-nots switch places

I’m afraid I must disagree with my friend John Colson. In his Hit & Run column (“Support the Freedom to Vote Act“, Sept. 21, The Aspen Times), he generalized that the Republican Party was the party of the “haves” while the Democrats represented the “have-nots.”

That certainly was the case in the Franklin Roosevelt to Donald Trump era. FDR championed the working class, emphasizing the “government for the people” phrase in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, while the Republicans courted the moneyed class for their generous campaign donations.

But the times they are a changing. Jeff Bezos has been described as a libertarian, but he’s the owner of the decidedly liberal Washington Post, and he lines the pockets of Democratic candidates. Elon Musk once defined himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but he later disavowed the conservative label.



Warren Buffett is a confirmed Democrat. Bill Gates is a Republican, but he has no use for Trump, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and is a globalist and a climate champion.

Meanwhile, the blue-collar workers that the Democrats thought they had nailed down forgot what FDR did for them and gave into their racist tendencies by voting for Trump in 2016. They didn’t like being called “a basket of deplorables” or being accused of “clinging to their guns and their bibles.”




It’s an unfortunate fact that in this pay-for-your-education society the wealthy are more learned. During the 2019 impeachment hearings, the House Judiciary Committee called for a group of constitutional experts to testify. Afterward, Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said, ”Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to go to Harvard or Stanford law schools.” With that, Gohmert established the Republican Party as the party of the ignorant.

Stay tuned. The composition of the two parties has changed before, and it’ll change again. For stability, perhaps we should turn to the independents.

Fred Malo Jr.

Carbondale