On Voting.

I don’t make a habit of discussing politics, and I don’t plan to spew a bunch of nonsense here about any particular party or agenda. This is just my two cents on the subject overall, and how I came to my individual stance on things.

Growing up, political discussion was not something that happened in my house. I knew my father was a Republican and that my mother was registered as such as well. Later I came to know that Mom sometimes “voted differently” than Pops. But that was pretty much it. My father and I had exactly ONE conversation about party affiliation, after I’d come home at 18 and told him I’d just registered to vote. “Who’d you register with?”, he asked. “The Democrats”, I replied. “Oh. Your Grandfather would be proud of you.” he said in return and walked away. Thus ended our only political discussion.

Considering there was virtually no political discussion in the home when I was growing up, and that I grew up in the SF Bay Area, it’s not surprising that I’d be drawn towards the Democrat party. Keep in mind that my first real exposure to national politics was with Ronnie Reagan, which I thought was a joke…until he won. Then I started to see him as dangerous and a phony. Everyone talked about how wonderful he was, calling him “the Great Communicator”, but to me – just entering my teens – I got the same feeling watching him as I did watching the TV Evangelists that were so prevalent at the time. It all seemed like an act. His folksy, down-home demeanor was a schtick. The “just say no” campaign his crypt-keeper of a wife kept cramming down everyone’s throats was absurd. His coziness with “the Moral Majority” was concerning to say the least, but his “I don’t remember” line of gratuitous lies during the Iran-Contra hearings cemented him in my list of charlatans.

It was mid- way through his second term when I was of legal age to vote, and my first presidential vote was against Reagan’s VP, George H.W. Bush who sadly won. I loathed that president, to the point of considering leaving the US when he started his money laundering scheme in Iraq. I was not about to die for oil.

Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate that I actually got excited about, so much so that I took time off from work to go see a campaign stop. (I never did see him BTW, waited for 2 hrs AFTER the scheduled start time of his appearance, and he still hadn’t shown up, so I left feeling let down, but I still voted for the guy.)

I was elated at first with Clinton. Energy and enthusiasm were high. The nation seemed to be changing, moving in the “right direction” and for the first time in my life I had some financial stability. Things were looking up. Then the bottom fell out. Scandals, impeachment, “it depends on what your definition of the word is, is”… life as I knew it was over. Another charlatan.

It was during the Al Gore campaign that my world view was shattered. A good friend of mine at the time, a fellow Democrat – and one the smartest people I’ve ever known, to this day – opened my eyes to the corruption of “our side” and I was never able to be a “party line” voter after that, even though I still considered myself a Democrat.

When George “Dubya” Bush was elected I first became suspicious of the whole elections thing. Remember the ‘hanging chads’ in Florida? It was inconceivable to me that the nation would choose Dubya over VP Gore, even in spite of his own flaws. Nevertheless, I was still firmly on the Dems side. My view of the Republicans was that they were liars and warmongers (Dick Cheney, anyone?) and cared only about power and money.

Thus far in my life , I’d felt firmly on the “losing” side politically, and honestly it was disheartening. The *other side seemed so corrupt and out-of-touch, I didn’t think it was possible that the elections were honest and true. I felt there HAD to be corruption, that somebody behind the curtain was making selections and just letting us poor saps think we had a voice.

Just as things were becoming so bleak, we suddenly had the bright light of “Hope and Change”! I was suspicious as could be about Barack, he seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and had virtually no experience. But I freely admit, I was won over by his rhetoric. I truly BELIEVED in what he was saying. I believed in America. When he won the election, I actually believed it was going to usher in a new ” enlightenment” period in our history and we would finally see a return to reason and national pride.

Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out as I thought and I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him a second time. Where I had felt letdown by Clinton, I felt absolutely betrayed by Obama.

I was during Obama’s presidency that I was frequently on a few different forums online that leaned to the right. My thought being “know thy enemy” kinda thing. I wanted to see behind the scenes, I wanted to know what the right leaning people were saying, not the so-called leaders. And it was a huge eye opener. I soon realized that I had a lot more in common with the right side than I ever could have imagined. And it gave me a completely different view of what was going on with the left side as well. I was starting to wake up to the fact that I’d been bamboozled my entire life. I was opening my mind to different points of view once I got off the steady diet of MSM “news”.

When the Clinton vs. Trump election was held, I “held my nose” and choked down the bile and voted D once again. I could not vote for yet another phony, whom I viewed as a Grade A Bullshit artist and a vulgar egomaniac. To be honest, when Trump won, I thought well, “its nice poke in the eye to the establishment, and how bad could it be? That’s what happens when you try to ‘anoint’ a president that isn’t wanted.”

All in all, I don’t think Trump was nearly as bad as he was made out to be. Yes, he’s crass, he’s a bit of a bully, and I do believe he was out of his depth in a lot of ways, but as far as the Country performed, it wasn’t all that bad. And if the obstructionists hadn’t been on his heels and in his grill 24/7 since before he was even inaugurated, he might have actually been OK.

When he ran again, I didn’t vote for him once again, but I would not, could not vote for Biden. I did a write-in vote for the first time in my life, for Tulsi Gabbard. My own personal poke in the eye to the establishment. What the DNC did to her during her primary run was unconscionable and vile. While I don’t think she’s the be-all, end-all candidate I did believe she was the best chance our country had to get past the Trump era.

A combination of things happened along the way that finally convinced me to abandon the Democratic Party, and I did so prior to the last Presidential election. I registered as an Independent in 2018, and I am glad I did.

What I thought was their ideals – looking out for the ‘little guy’, fairness, live and let live policies, funding social needs over military industrial complex priorities… it all turned out to be a bunch of lies.

I don’t know if the “left” has just drastically, dramatically changed course over the last 35 years, or if they were always like this and I just didn’t see it, but I cannot stand with pretty much anything the Democrats stand for these days.

I’ve been on the losing side most of my voting life, and that never really bothered me. I figured small victories here and there would push us eventually to a “better place”.

I don’t know about you, but what I see in the news, what I see with my own two eyes every single time I go to San Jose or to San Francisco…it’s pretty much all bad news.

The powers that be always say if they just had some more money, then they could finally fix things…but they’ve been taking more and more, year after year, and the problems compound year after year. What they are doing clearly isn’t working. On any level.

I recognize that this post has focused only on the Presidential races, and tomorrow has nothing to do with that. Nonetheless, the point remains. The people that are currently “running the show” are doing a terrible job. Tomorrow is their performance evaluation, and YOU are their boss. Don’t forget that.

They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but for the last 6 years or so, the only squeaky wheels have come from the extreme fringes of our country. It’s time us “normal”, everyday folks that work for a living start squeaking. And loudly. The first step is to ignore your “party”, and LOOK at the evidence of the job your incumbents have done. If they bear any responsibility for the current state of affairs we’re in, it’s time to terminate their employment. They can always learn to code, right?

For me personally, I’ll be voting against any and all propositions that require so much as .001% of a penny in tax increases. I don’t care what the “cause”, our government have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are incapable of both managing a budget AND getting positive returns on OUR investments. Likewise, I will be voting against any and all candidates and propositions that are endorsed by any, and I do mean any, trade union.

That’s just me. Vote your own conscience, based on your own conclusions. Just please, for the love of all that is Holy, abandon “party line” voting. It’s leading us to ruin.

Thanks for stopping by. Now go vote.