Election Day 2022 -- This Time It's Personal!

Okay. Less than a week until the midterm elections. Time for the political post. (Sorry. I couldn’t not do this. It’s important.  I’ll return to my typical blog stuff in the next post.)  .

Also: Don’t expect this post to be politically neutral.

My Political Leanings

At present time, I am a registered Democrat. In the past I have been registered as an Independent and as a Republican (that last one was long, long ago, back in my late teens/early twenties). My tendency has always been to vote for the person I believe is best suited for the job, regardless of their party affiliation.  I have voted for Democrats. I have voted for Republicans. I have also voted for members of political parties other than the ‘Big Two’.

Although, to be perfectly honest, it’s been a while since I considered a Republican candidate to be that best person for the job. I voted for one Republican in 2016, and that was largely because he had been a friend of mine back in high school. 

The Red (State) Menace

For the bulk of my adult life, I have thought of Republican politicians as ‘the opposition’. Not ‘the enemy’. I liked the thought that I lived in a country where a person’s political opponent was neither a poor loser nor a poor winner, but someone who could still shake your hand after the election results came in and say, “You ran a good campaign”. I liked thinking that I lived in a country where bipartisan cooperation was a thing that could actually happen.

Shortly after the 2016 Presidential election, I started thinking of the Republicans as the enemy.  In 2020 – because of their actions and agendas – I actually started thinking of Republicans as almost evil.

That was unfair of me. And wrong. Misguided, and somewhat misinformed. By and large, Republicans are not evil and are not even the enemy.

What is evil and is the enemy is the cancerous parasite currently controlling the leadership of the Republican party. I’m talking of course about the MAGA cult. (Yes, I just called it a cult. It might not have started out that way, but that’s definitely what it has evolved into.)

And MAGA cultists definitely see Democrats as their enemy. I’ve seen photos and videos online of people wearing MAGA hats and t-shirts which read “I’d Rather Be A Russian Than A Democrat”. 

The MAGA cultists take their name from Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”. What they don’t tell you is exactly who they want to Make America Great Again for. And that’s wealthy able-bodied white heterosexual cis-males who give lip-service to Christianity. They are trying to Make America Great Again for that segment of society and for that segment of society only.

MAGA is opposed to non-Caucasians. MAGA is opposed to homosexuality. MAGA is opposed to the transgendered. MAGA is opposed to women. MAGA is opposed to non-Christians. MAGA is opposed to the disabled. And MAGA simply doesn’t give a shit about the poor.

The MAGA Agenda

I will be voting the Democrat party line all the way down the ballot this year in an effort to help defeat MAGA candidates. Because MAGA hasn’t been quiet about its plans should it end up with control of congress. 

Those plans include (but are not limited to): 

    Gutting Social Security and Medicare

    Signing a Nationwide “No Exceptions” Abortion Ban into Law

    Repealing President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act

    Repealing the Affordable Health Care Act

    Defunding and closing the Department of Education

    Granting More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy and to Big Corporations

    Restricting the Ability to Vote for People Who Traditionally Don’t Vote for Republicans

The Failings of Post #38

I really should go over what all of the MAGA agenda items I listed will mean for America and its citizens, but I just can’t. I’ve been working on this post for what seems like forever now, and I can tell it’s going to be incredibly short compared to my typical posts.

I hadn’t expected writing this post to be as stressful as it has been. But even just sitting here thinking about the details of this important and frightening topic that I’m writing about has got me worried and anxious (and somewhat afraid that at any moment I’m going to have some sort of stress-based medical episode). Actually typing these words hasn’t been much better.

A large part of the Republican campaign for this election is pointing out how expensive everything right now and blaming that on President Biden and the Democrats in office. (I have yet to hear a plan as to how the Republican party plans to counteract this, but…that apparently isn’t a great concern to anyone voting red.)  So I am very worried about what the average person is going to care more about at the polls on election day: Whether or not their daughter might someday need an abortion, or how much it costs to fill their gas tank right now.

I had plans to write about how voting is probably your most important civic duty as an American. I was going to talk about how each and every vote really does matter, and talk about races that were won by a mere handful of votes. Or sometimes just that one single vote.

I really wanted this post to be as much inspiration as it is doom-and-gloom. But the past few days have also been bad for me, insomnia-wise, and I just can’t.

I gave serious thought to just skipping this post altogether and picking the blog schedule back up again on Sunday. But even though I don’t have the largest readership on the internet, I figured that if this post convinces even just one of you to vote who otherwise wouldn’t due to disinterest or simple forgetfulness, then it would be worth the effort.

Anyway… PLEASE go vote. (I put my ballot in the mail this morning.)  Think about everything that MAGA plans to do to our country (not for our country, but to our country), and vote blue.