Perhaps evidenced by my use of a throwaway, let me give a personal example
For most of my life, I identified and voted largely democrat. Over the last 5-10 years I've found myself far more independent aligned due in part to the issues mentioned of the parent poster. Some of the points of conflict include affirmative action. I am fully supportive of helping underprivileged groups, dedicated funding and corrective policy changes to remove things keeping them down, but do not think explicit affirmative action is the right way to go about that, and in fact feel it weakens ones position and seems clearly hypocritical from one ostensibly seeking equality.
I also take a broad issue with the sheer amount of effort the democrats have focused on issues of identity as opposed to class. Not that one should ignore the former, but I find the latter to be a far more central, immediate, and critical issue that needs addressing, and that the way the democrats are implementing their approach to the former, like their position on affirmative action, is instead driving a wedge and fighting against their best intentions.
For most of my life, I identified and voted largely democrat. Over the last 5-10 years I've found myself far more independent aligned due in part to the issues mentioned of the parent poster. Some of the points of conflict include affirmative action. I am fully supportive of helping underprivileged groups, dedicated funding and corrective policy changes to remove things keeping them down, but do not think explicit affirmative action is the right way to go about that, and in fact feel it weakens ones position and seems clearly hypocritical from one ostensibly seeking equality.
I also take a broad issue with the sheer amount of effort the democrats have focused on issues of identity as opposed to class. Not that one should ignore the former, but I find the latter to be a far more central, immediate, and critical issue that needs addressing, and that the way the democrats are implementing their approach to the former, like their position on affirmative action, is instead driving a wedge and fighting against their best intentions.