Forward of an article on Facebook pages of Edgar Galicia of Kansas City

I can call myself a ‘Democrat” all i want, but if I do so while defending the kind of right-wing governance that has pushed Oklahoma to the bottom of nearly every quality of life ranking, then I am not a democratic thinking person.

Because the label on the tin doesn’t tell you what’s inside; what matters is the nature of the actions, the policies enacted, and the real world outcomes for the people. The city I love has many people calling themselves “Democrats” but push to the right to different degrees.

Here’s why that distinction matters and how history and data back it up.

The Historical Shell Game. How “Democrat” Became a Confusing Label

This debate is constantly leaning on a familiar but outdated trope; that the Democratic Party of the Civil War era is the same as the Democratic Party today. That’s historically false.

The Democratic Party of the 19th century was indeed the party of slavery, white supremacy, and states’ rights, the party that opposed Reconstruction and erected Jim Crow laws. Southern Democrats defended segregation as “a way of life”. But here’s what most “right wing thinkers” conveniently leave out: THE PARTIES REALIGNED!

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson (a Democrat) signed the Civil Rights Act. He reportedly told an aide that night “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come”. And that’s exactly what happened. Southern white voters who opposed civil rights defected from the Democratic Party, first as “Dixiecrats,” then increasingly to the GOP, fueled by Nixon’s “Southern strategy” that appealed to racial resentment.

So when someone says “Democrats were the racists,” they’re telling a half-truth. The label stayed; the coalition flipped. Today, the states that were once the heart of the Confederacy (including Oklahoma) are overwhelmingly Republican. The party that once defended segregation is now the party that Black voters support by overwhelming margins. You can’t judge a party by its 1860 platform any more than you can judge a person by their great-grandfather’s diary.

Here you have a policy test i found: Left vs. Center vs. Right Governance

If we want to judge governance, we shouldn’t look at labels (unless it is convenient for your arguments) we should look at results… And the data is stark.

States with Best Outcomes vs. States with Worst Outcomes.

Health care

8 of top 10 are Democratic-controlled.

10 of bottom 10 are Republican-controlled

Public education

7 of top 10 are Democratic-controlled

8 of bottom 10 are Republican-controlled

Violent crime

4 of 5 lowest are Democratic-controlled

4 of 5 highest are Republican-controlled

This isn’t about “socialism” vs. “capitalism” It’s about whether government invests in the common good, or systematically starves public services while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Anyone who thinks that I am “clinging to the socialism tit” is repeating a slogan, not engaging with evidence.

Anyone defending Oklahoma’s reality, is missing the point. Oklahoma is a Case Study in Right-Wing Governance Failures, and the numbers back me up completely.

Education: In 2011, under a Democratic governor, Oklahoma ranked 17th in education. After 16 years of Republican governors and a Republican legislature, it has fallen to 49th.

Overall rankings: Oklahoma is now ranked 41st for business, 49th in education, and 49th in life, health and inclusion.

Health care: Medicaid expansion (SoonerCare) reduced the uninsured rate from 17.6% in 2019 to 13.9% in 2024, yet Republican leaders keep trying to roll it back.

Poverty: One in four Oklahoma children go hungry. This is horrible… what ethnicity do you think this hungry kid belongs to? The government policies took away their boots all together, not only their straps.

The person who says “Conservatives want government out of the way” is describing exactly the ideology that has produced these results. But “out of the way” in practice means “absent when children need schools, when families need health care, when communities need investment.” That’s not freedom, that’s neglect dressed up in a flag.

Now, lets talk about the Socialist Bogeyman vs. Actual History

Ignorance claims “socialism has historically failed 100% of the time.” But public education, Social Security, Medicare, the interstate highway system, rural electrification, these are all forms of collective investment that built the American middle class. If they are not “socialism”; they are the basic functions of a government that serves its people.

Some claim that “Democrats only seek to benefit the 1%” Look at the data: Republican tax cuts consistently favor the wealthy; Democratic administrations have expanded health care access, student aid, and worker protections.

The rhetoric about “government out of our pocketbooks” sounds nice, but the reality is that the states that follow that philosophy end up at the bottom of every ranking that matters.

At the end of things… You can call yourself a “Democrat” while pushing policies that defund schools, cut health care, and concentrate wealth at the top, but if you do, you’re not practicing democratic governance. You’re practicing oligarchy with a folksy accent.

The question isn’t “which party wore which label in 1860.” The question is: What are you doing right now to make people’s lives better?

In Oklahoma as in many places in our nation, the answer (after 16 years of Republican rule) is: not much.

The rankings don’t lie. The children going hungry don’t care about your historical trivia. They care about whether their school has books, whether their family can see a doctor, whether their future holds anything but poverty.

That’s the conversation we need to have. Not about labels. About results. About who actually governs for the people, and who governs for themselves.

Here, I said it! #Republicans vs. #DemocraticGovernance