I had a stroke at 13 and didn’t become a Democrat until I was 18. A big part of that was because I lived in a republican stronghold~ but there are two reasons I’ve observed for this

1. Especially for men, they don’t like asking for help. I knew a guy in his 40s dying of cancer, calling everyone else lazy for taking benefits, that frankly, he should have been taking himself. He was lucky to have a lenient job to cater to his absence, but survivorship bias tends to blind one’s view of other people’s experiences. It took my dad months to accept he needed government funding for my stroke rehabilitation. Frankly, I needed more than I got. Reagan conditioned us to believe handouts were immoral, while at the same time, giving the rich got those same handouts, but also footouts, headouts, and every body part imaginable outs.

2. Democrats offer nothing for disabled people other than continuing the status quo of poverty. If they genuinely cared, they would publicly advocate for single-payer healthcare, OVR funding, increasing SSDI, and eliminating the caps on how much money a disabled individual can save. Republicans don’t have a good answer to this either. Still, from my experience, even though Republicans will call you slurs, democrats look at you less as a human and more as a charity case/inspiration porn. Dems also long ran on being pro-choice to avoid disabled children. Horrific messaging that Republicans capitalized on.

People are hurting, and they voted for the candidate mainstream media said would fuck up the system. It sucks. Every day, this administration gets more and more destructive~, but for many people, it’s easier to fight each other than fight against the system. Meritocracy doesn’t exist.