Why Democratic voters won't accept Republican defectors.

Last week, Dan Poulter, a conservative party member of Great Britain's parliament,

abandon the Tories to become a member of the Progressive Labor Party. In 2022, Christian Wakeford

similarly left the Tories to join Labor, the equivalent of an American

Republican member of Congress being welcomed into the Democratic Party.

The last time a Republican member of the U.S. Congress became a Democrat

was New York's Michael Forbes, who made the switch more than two decades ago in 1999.

Democrats in his district overwhelmingly rejected him in the

2000 election. Although he raised and spent 1.4 million dollars to hold his seat

he was defeated by a 71-year-old librarian who'd raised and

spent a mere $40,000. Why would it be that in Great Britain conservative

members of Parliament are welcomed into the Labor Party but here in the US it's almost impossible

for a Republican to successfully become a Democrat. Turns out there's a reason.

British Conservatives and American Republicans are qualitatively different.

The British equivalent of our Supreme Court never legalized political bribery.

Because corrupt Republicans on the court legalized political bribery most recently with Citizens United,

we have Republicans who take money from the NRA and gun manufacturers blocking an assault weapons ban and pushing for more guns in our communities in school.

Republicans who take money from the fossil fuel industry denying climate change and sabotaging efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

Republicans who take money from the pharma industry fighting Biden's efforts to allow

Medicare to negotiate drug prices while working to protect the industry's obscene profits.

Republicans who take money from the for-profit health insurance industry obstructing all efforts to create a national single-payer system that would save Americans as much as half of what

we spend on health care.

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