Ok, I plan to start with Etsy OR Shopify, then quickly have both Etsy AND Shopify, as phase 1.

I will sell a limited product offering on both Etsy / Shopify, so I do not accidentally "poke the bear".

Which may be the best one to start with? Etsy OR Shopify?

The rhetoric that is taking place here is made this thread turn sideways. There is a lot of misinformed information, let's just stick to what is pertinent to the thread.

 they're all very expensive... as normal Merchant rates are 0.5% rather than the 3%-5% charged by PayPal/Stripe/Square.

This information is not just inaccurate, it is impossible. And if you understood how the system works and the different rating tables, you would know that for traditional retail using a traditional card payment system, it is impossible to obtain a discount rate of 0.5% taking retail credit cards.

The reason it is impossible to obtain that rate is all card transactions pass through an interchange (visanet). The interchange charges a percentage of the transaction and a flat processing fee. Your processor will add additional fees as profit. There are also fees associated with a gateway (like authorize.net) which you must pass through and that gets marked up as well. Some merchants now have their own gateway to allow more profit.

At the core, is the interchange. The interchange discount rates vary depending on the type of merchant you are. For most retail, that could average around 1.8%.  That is without profit. The rates can be somewhat complex which is why getting quotes for merchant processing can be confusing. That average of 1.8% is for card present. The fees are higher for card not present. That 1.8% average also assumes a regular card. If the card you accept has 'miles', the discount rate is going to be higher. If the card is issued to a business, the rate will be higher.  

You can read through this on your own
https://usa.visa.com/support/small-business/regulations-fees.html
https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/interlink-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf

When you go through a traditional merchant like say Chase Paymenttech, your statement will show each transaction and all the associated fees for that transaction. At the end of the day, if you add up all the fees for your card not present transactions and divide by sales, it will be around 2.9% to 3.5% +/-.  What some merchant processors have done is make this simple and offer simplified pricing that will come out to the same effective rate as traditional processors that charge based on the transaction, type of card etc.

There are some fees that go above the 3% mark and that will be for bank cards like American Express where it is typically about 1% additional.

There is only one way to get  0.5% discount rates and that is going through an ACH processor like https://www.dwolla.com/pricing/ The downside is the user on the other end has to either have Dwolla (or whatever source you use) or create an account and add their checking account as a funding source. Not very practical for a consumer where it is easier to use a card somewhere else.

The takeaway in regards to merchant fees is you will be in that 2.6% to 3% range for taking online payments via consumer credit cards and there is no way around that without adding burden to your customers by using an ACH service like Dwolla.

Frankly, my own opinion is your title should have been worded differently. The term woke has different connotations for different people. More importantly, it negatively affected the way you get an answer inciting fear, uncertainty, and doubt by my colleague instead of factual answers.

In your own question, you seem to have created contradictions

I see how awesome both Etsy and Shopify are for making a simple drag and drop interface that lets anyone have a commercial web portal. But, I have heard rumors that Etsy and Shopify are both WOKE...   ...But, to be fair to Etsy does permit products from both sides of the political aisle. 

Is your concern that by, "woke" you don't want to deal with a company that appears liberal because perhaps they donate to certain charities or give equal freedoms to a specific group of people?  If that is the case, then you should do some research to eliminate them from your choices.

Or are you concerned that your products will be taken down because they represent conservative views? You said you heard rumors but you also verified those rumors are just that, rumors by the searching you did. Here are more for etsy https://www.etsy.com/market/proud_conservative

For this thread, let's stick with your actual question, What can you suggest as a quick easy to deploy sales portal. I do think we have provided some good options for you here and now it is up to you to do your own research by looking at things like the terms of use.

@curiouswebster, based on the information provided here so far, what are you leaning towards? besides political content, what are you concerned about for a sales portal/software?