In recent years, there's been a growing number of people claiming the two major parties in the United States are one and the same. While I have long asserted the issues I have with a two-party system, I'm not going to beat around the bush; the Democratic and Republican Parties are about as identical as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The biggest difference between the two parties is mindset. Democrats need consistent proof to persuade them on an issue, whereas Republicans need a sliver of evidence to prove or disprove a point. There are exceptions, of course, which often poses a paradox for the Republican Party - as they don't believe there are exceptions to every rule; they believe exceptions are the rule.
Just recently, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill announced, since 2023, 400 Garden-State noncitizens have voted in elections. This has set off a firestorm amongst Republicans, as they've long-claimed rampant election fraud; that the 2020 presidential election was rigged; and undocumented immigrants vote regularly across the country. Sadly, the mainstream media followed suit, saying, "Gosh, it appears Donald Trump and his base of supporters were right about this."
Prior to this announcement, countless studies, from both right- and left-leaning organizations, showed voter fraud to be incredibly rare, with the rate somewhere between .0000845% and .0025%.
Here's the breakdown of New Jersey voters between 2023 and 2025:
2023: 3.4M
2024: 4.2M
2025: 3.2M
Total: 10.8M
In other words, out of 10.8M votes cast over the past 3 years, 400 noncitizens have voted in New Jersey, which is a rate of .0037%, only .0012% higher than what the aforementioned studies suggested. Did the glitch, which ultimately prompted the illegal votes, need to be fixed? Yes. But did this seeming abberation prove voter fraud was rampant in this country, as Donald Trump and his minions have long claimed? Absolutely not.
Climate-change has continually been proven study after study, year after year, yet if and when it snows in the mountains at the peak of winter, you'll see a Republican politician hold up a snowball and claim it disproves global-warming (climate-change). Gun study after gun study suggests stricter gun laws tend to decrease gun violence, but as soon as there's a mass-shooting in a Democratic-led state, Republicans will point and say, "See? Gun laws don't work."
This is the biggest difference between the two parties, and why I am very much left-of-center on the political spectrum. I didn't just blindly believe politicians, religious figures, nor talk radio hosts when they made ardent declarations to the world. I had to be persuaded with consistent evidence, cognizant of the fact humans are imperfect; laws created by humans will thereby be imperfect; and just because a manmade law isn't perfect, that doesn't mean it's not effective. A vast majority of the Republican Party has been repeatedly told what to believe from non-experts, and in the face of continual contradictive evidence, they continue to believe what they've been told; what they want to believe; and will seek confirmation-bias from even the most illegitimate of sources to convince themselves they're right.
Crazily enough, nuance is a thing. Rarely is anything ever black-and-white. While I don't think it'd be controversial for me to say, "Murder is wrong," would it be impossible for me to conjure a situation where it's not? What if my life were in danger? Someone were pointing a gun at my child? If I was in war, fighting against Nazis? If I pulled the trigger, would most people look at me differently? Like I was a monster? A murderer? That I should be put in prison? I doubt it. Even in the dire situation of taking another's life, there can be nuance.
This is why it can be incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible, to engage in civil, thoughtful debate with a modern-day Republicans. GOPers imply liberals and Democrats alike support abortion. We don't support abortion; nobody supports abortion. In singles ads, you'll never find someone who says, "I like crosswords, skinny-skiing, long walks on the beach, and having abortions." What we support is women possessing the right to have an abortion. There is a stark difference between believing in women's reproductive rights and shouting, "I love abortion!" To Republicans, though, there is no nuance - abortion is wrong and should be 100% illegal. What they fail to realize is Democrats and liberals would love to decrease abortions via comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraception. That's the crazy part about the "pro-life" movement. They scream ad nauseam that abortion should be illegal in each and every case, yet support measures which increase the odds of abortions. Abstinence-only education does NOT prepare young people for their raging hormones and sexual curiosities. This leads to more unprotected sex; unwanted pregnancies; and with that, abortions. The same is true with not providing adequate access to contraception. If "pro-lifers" went the way of pro-choicers on education and contraception-access, they'd see fewer abortions. But again, to them, there's no grey area, and yelling "ABORTION IS WRONG," while seeing an uptick in the procedure is apparently more effective than decreasing abortions, without impeding on the reproductive rights of women.
That brings us to Donald Trump, or as I like to call him, Cheatin' Chunky Cheeto. While, to the GOP, the exceptions are the rule, in regard to science, Donald Trump is always the exception to the rule. Go ahead, confront a MAGA with a negative fact regarding their antithetical Jesus idol, and I can guarantee you one of three things will occur: 1) They'll say, "That's just the liberal media," 2) You'll hear a, "Yeah, but...," and/or 3) "Oh yeah? Well, (Democratic politician) did it too/was worse!"
Trump is in the Epstein files!
"So is Bill Clinton!"
Trump was found liable of raping a woman!
"That was in the liberal state of New York!"
Trump lied over 30,000 times during his first term!
"Yeah, but he just tells it like it is!"
The modern-day Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party of old. It's not the party of Eisenhower. It's not the party of Teddy Roosevelt. It's certainly not the party of Lincoln. It's a cult. They've been programmed by: right-wing talk radio, Fox "News," anti-Christ pastors, and catchy bumper-sticker slogans. They've been told what to think; told what to say; and programmed to exempt rules and laws based on exceptions, except...
https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/jul/24/donald-trump/new-jersey-illegal-immigrants-vote-save/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-widespread-is-election-fraud-in-the-united-states-not-very/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
https://whyy.org/articles/2025-new-jersey-election-voter-turnout/
https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2024/11/turnout-nj-president-trump-harris/
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