Blue No Matter Who in '22
My voting record is very inconsistent. Fresh out of the military I was a die hard Republican, on a steady diet of Fox News and a totally biased reading list. I was the lone Bush supporter while attending Santa Monica College during the Iraq War; my Ronald Reagan t-shirt was not very popular on campus. I was all in for John McCain, at first. Sarah Palin and the Confederacy of Dunces was the bridge too far for me. I voted for Obama once and neither of the major parties in 2012 or 2016. Admittedly, I was among the doubters who asked "How bad could Trump be?" in 2016. We found out; my vote in 2020 was less for Biden than it was against Trump.
That's where we stand. I think the DNC is 💩 but, going forward, I will always vote for a Democrap against a Republican't. The incompetence of the DNC is preferable to the malicious regressiveness of the christo-fascists who call themselves conservative. I like to ask what they think they're conserving. The inevitable deer in headlights look when I explain "conserving your way of life is authoritarianism, not conservatism;" never gets old.
This puts me begrudgingly in the tank for the Democraps; I rationalize it by thinking that they are the true conservative party in this country. Yes, there's a light smattering of progressives within the party; none of them far enough to the left to be considered progressive in Europe. We don't have anyone pushing for actual socialism, the occasional socialist policy is good for the economy. Really the progressives of the left are fighting to end America's plutocracy. Wealthy kingmakers rule the land, paying to play by the rules set for their corporate agenda. The average leftist is cool with that status quo.
The clearly stated policy of the GOP is the erosion of rights based on pseudo-biblical thinking. Equality, equity and bodily autonomy are on the ballot in 2022. I'm not confident in the left's ability to fight for our rights but I am painfully aware of the right's yearning to have them removed from the "undesirables." Then, they'll have the audacity to look you in the eye and say "actually, I'm a Libertarian." The sad reality is, the people who could benefit most from free college are the ones fighting against it. The Republicans love the uneducated for good reason.
I in no way consider myself a Democrat, but I will vote for every single one of them from this point on. At this stage of reality there is only one Republican I respect and I still won't vote for them. Guilty by association. The GOP is long overdue for a very late-term abortion, and I used to be a very staunch supporter.