It’s Just Who I Am …

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2024, Environmental Issues, History, Personal, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I am not, contrary to what most might believe based on my points of view, a registered Democrat.  Nor am I a registered Republican.  I am an Independent, liking to keep my options open, to choose the best candidate for the job rather than being affiliated with either political party and thereby expected to vote in one way or another.

I well remember a good friend from about 50 years ago saying with feeling, “My granddaddy was a Democrat, my daddy was a Democrat, and by god I will always be a Democrat just like they were!”   I doubt Charles Lee Shortt ever voted anything but Democrat in his lifetime.  I, on the other hand, have voted for candidates in both parties, though I do align more nearly with the Democrats’ way of thinking and have voted for Democrats more often than Republicans.  But this year, I will be voting a straight Democratic ticket from president all the way down to dog catcher.  Why?  Because something has happened to the Republican Party … it is like a highly contagious disease … they have completely lost not only their humanity, but their understanding of what government is and why governments even exist.

No politician ever has been or ever will be perfect.  First of all because they are human, and humans are imperfect, but secondly because they are often forced to make decisions without having all the information to make the right decision.  That said, a politician’s job is to make decisions that are in the best interest of the nation and its people – ALL of its people.  And this is where the Republican Party makes its first fatal mistake:  their sole focus is to benefit the wealthy who will in turn help ensure their duration and enhance their wealth/power.  The Republican Party has almost single-handedly turned the United States into a plutocracy – government by the wealthy.

The lengths to which the Republican Party is willing to go to please and appease their wealthy friends is astounding.  They have plainly stated, for any who bother to listen, that they will roll back all environmental/climate regulations on industries when and if they are in a position to do so, thus making us a pariah among our current allies and dooming future generations to struggling for mere survival.  They believe that their path to success is to feed the fires of racial divisiveness, to which end they are willing to create false stories about immigrants and whitewash the racist history of the nation.  They make no bones about the fact they wish to cut or end programs that help the entire populace of the nation such as education & healthcare, while spending more on such as fossil fuel expansion and military buildup – things that benefit the wealthy corporations.

All of that is bad enough, but the fact that they are willing to lie to us, cheat us, and steal from us is the icing on the cake.  There are 330 million people in the U.S., 760 of whom are billionaires.  The Republican Party pledges its allegiance to those 760 at the expense of not only the rest of us, but the global community – approximately 8 billion people.  And their lies are not even believable and they really don’t care, for enough people will believe them, and that’s really all they care about … getting enough people to vote for them … this time.  Think about that one for a minute.

So no, I am not a registered Democrat, I remain an Independent, but at this point in time I cannot envision a point where I would be willing to fill in the block next to a Republican’s name on my ballot.  It’s as if we are two entirely different species – one, Democrats, who still have humanity, empathy and compassion, and the other, Republicans, who have none, who have sold their souls upriver to the highest bidders.  I am not a party loyalist, but I am a human being, I am proudly WOKE, I care about all people far more than I care about money.  That’s just who I am.

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40 thoughts on “It’s Just Who I Am …”

  1. It happens. A party gets taken hold of by one extremist wing who pretend they are all about freedom and suchwhich while basically it’s ‘We know best. So hush up,’. In the mainland UK for some reason which has to be cultural at some stage that wing goes all wibbly-wobbly (family friendly version), the more moderates find their voices, lots of infighting and the public start to collectively go ‘Hmmmm,’ and then we start all over again.

    I am hoping at some stage this will kick in over your side of the pond Jill.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. In every UK election, all ballot papers are hand-counted. That rarely takes longer than 12 hours and we know the majority of the results by breakfast. There is no justification for any of your states claiming such long delays in hand-counting that I can see.

    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 4 people

  6. Occasionally, very occasionally I’ve come across a Conservative Leader who I might think about voting for. It’s interesting playing who I would vote for in the US. Only once would I have given a second thought to voting Republican. I thought John McCain was a really decent bloke and potentially dedicated and hard working President. But Obama would have got my vote. Put McCain up against Clinton’s and it might well have been different. But now politics has become so polarised, it’s almost impossible to see the possibility of not voting my usual way.

    Liked by 3 people

    • You are so right … John McCain was a good man, a man of conscience, a man who cared more about the people than about wealth. His loss was tragic. Two of today’s best Republicans are Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom have been run out of office because they wouldn’t toe the Trump line.

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  7. Pingback: It’s Just Who I Am … | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  8. Jill, Messers. Trump and Vance have just been criminally charged for their endangering lies by a Springfield Haitian non-profit community group. Will it stand up? Maybe. Is it deserved, in my view, absolutely. Keith

    Liked by 4 people

  9. First of all because they are human, and humans are imperfect, I want a recount. I’m not nor ever have been a politician and have been doing some self reflection and USED to be conceited.🤔Now I’m just a couple of miracles away from having my portrait hung in the vatican.🤣Probably right after being hanged in the courtyard.😘

    Liked by 1 person

    • OH please do let me know if they ever hang your portrait in the Vatican!!! I’d almost be willing to travel to Rome for that event! 🤣🤣🤣 (I think it’s more likely I’ll see your portrait in the post office!)

      Liked by 1 person

  10. Here in Georgia, it’s an open primary state, and there is no registration by party. I go to vote in the primary, and the poll werkerz ask me which ballot I want — Democrat or Republican. I can only choose one ballot, so my ballot selection depends on what primary race is moar important. The last time I voted in the Republican primary wuz 2016, and I voted for Ted “Tail-gunner” Cruz because I figgered he would be the candidate Hillary Clinton could beat. Turned out, Donald J. Stupidhead won in Ga.

    Cross-over voting izza regular occurrence in Georgia. My parents — staunch conservatives — regularly employed this tactic to choose weaker Democrats to oppose the sure-to-be-elected-in-a-red-state Republican.

    Things have purpled up in Georgia, and the Republicans have made some noises about making it a closed primary state. They can’t take what they’ve dished out for decades.

    Liked by 4 people

    • I’ve often wished that Ohio was an open primary state. My concern with Georgia at this moment is the latest determination to ‘hand count’ all ballots, which could hold up the process for weeks/months! Do you think that will stand, or that the courts will throw it out?

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      • Not sure why hand counting should take weeks. Admittedly Georgia’s population is about twice that of Aotearoa, but here, all ballots are hand counted and progress results published as the results of each voting place is completed. All ballots are in paper form – no machines or online voting. Usually within 5 hours after voting has closed, preliminary results for each electorate (voting district) are available. Special votes take a few days to be finalised, but it’s very rare for those to affect the election night results. What’s different here, is that even though we know who our representatives will be, it can take weeks (and occasionally months) for a government to be formed, as the various political parties negotiate and wrangle a coalition agreement.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Hi Barry! Good to see you!

          I think the main reason in summary that it takes so long to hand-count all ballots is that we don’t, so we aren’t prepared for it. And frankly, I wouldn’t trust hand-counting at this point, particularly in a state like Georgia that is a prime target for election interference. I truly hope that they are overruled on this, for the last thing we’re going to need after the election is more chaos!

          Liked by 1 person

      • My concern with Georgia at this moment is the latest determination to ‘hand count’ all ballots, which could hold up the process for weeks/months!

        (sigh)

        That mandate was put forward by the election board at the insistence of 3 MAGA board members who have been repeatedly warned by Republican attorney general Chris Carr their actions are violating Georgia law. The board members met in a secret closed door sessions in violation of sunshine laws and set conditions that don’t comply with legislation. Had any of this been done by Democrats there woulda been quinceconces by now. The attorney general and the governor have political ambitions in the state (The Kempsterator is term limited and will leave the governor’s mansion in 2026. It is widely speculated he will take aim at one of the 2 senate seats now held by Democrats Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff), so while the law is on their side, they don’t wanna rile up the MAGAt voters they will need to further their political goals.

        Last week the AG’s office sent the board a sternly worded letter, but the MAGATs aren’t bluffing — they will exceed the authority they derived from the laws, and the AG now hasta take a stance against them in favor of Georgia laws, or let the board roll over him like the delusional lickspittle that I believe him to be.

        Liked by 1 person

          • Also, there’s a countdown clock that starts on election day, so the election board can’t delay this indefinitely.

            The secretary of state shall certify the votes cast for federal and statewide offices and ballot questions across multiple counties “[n]ot later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day following the date on which such election was conducted”: November 22, 2024. O.C.G.A. § 21–2–499(b).

            Republicans put these election laws in place, and they can’t abide by their very own laws.

            Liked by 1 person

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