Political-ish

Good morning fellow writers and readers of the interwebs. Yes, I'm back to therapeutically hack away at my keyboard and send all my nonsense out into the universe for you to judge (or, hopefully not).

Lots of crazy shit going on in the world today. Well, let me rephrase. To me, things are different from what they have been in years past. People are different from what they have been in years past. It’s no secret where I am going with this. That is, unless you have been living under a fucking rock since about mid-summer 2015. That’s right people, a semi-political post. I say semi because I do not plan on speaking about things in the manner to which you are seeing it discussed on social media. I’m not going to be bashing anyone to the left, right, or center. I’m not going to be calling out all the “nasty women” and “bad hombres,” instead I just want to explain a few things and ask some questions. Are we cool? You still with me? Yeah? Okay, good.

I have always looked at myself as a decent person. From what I gather, so has virtually everyone I have ever encountered and continue to consider a friend. I mean, they have all been around for extreme periods of time in my life, so one can only deduce that they are not viewed as an asshole, right? I think I am fair. I think I am compassionate. I think that my beliefs and views are that of a sane, educated, and respectable person. Again, I would like to believe that if none of the latter were remotely close to being true, I would know that. I would assume people who didn’t possess those qualities would be sad, lonely, angry people. And I would also like to assume those people would know exactly why they were sad, angry, and alone. It’s all a part of that “reaping what you sow” type mentality to me. That being said, you act like an asshole, people treat you like an asshole, and that just hasn’t been anything I have experienced.

So, for all my life, the people who I considered friends have loved who I am. I have been complimented on my creativeness and my compassion. My straightforwardness applauded, told that my tendency to stand behind my convictions was an enviable trait. Admired because when I fuck up, I own it. Why does all of that go away because of how I cast my vote?

Incase you haven’t figured it out yet, I rode the Trump train all the way to the voting booth. Yes, I, A WOMAN, voted for Donald Trump. Apparently, because I have a pussy that he may, or may not, (I’m going with not) want to grab, it’s grievously worse. Oh, and I’m a racist now too. Did I mention that? An uneducated hillbilly, lest I forget that one. And I don’t care about the future of the country or my child’s future. Let’s see, am I forgetting anything? Yup. That’s me. A big ‘ole pile of shit. Because of how I voted. Even though all the other stuff I told you about me previous to this was true too, it apparently was rendered false as of Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Ready for the kicker, I voted for Obama both terms too and Bush both of his terms before that, and if I was old enough to have voted, I would have voted for Bill Clinton. But none of that matters. All radically different views, all radically different leaders, both sides of the political aisles.

You see, I don’t categorize myself in terms of political party. In fact, I’m not a political person at all. I’m driven by who I think will help MY FAMILY. If your platform is something that I can get behind, or you are speaking to a certain issue that, at that time in my life I can relate to in terms of what I believe, then that is how I decide who to cast my vote for. I watch the debates, give them all a fair shake, and then really think about what to do when it comes time to step in that booth. I did that with Obama. I, personally, didn’t get what I had expected. Same with Bush. So, this time around, I had to take a long hard look at what my options were for the next POTUS.

I took a lot of things into consideration. What it came down to was this: how was my family doing when Bush was in office? Meh, I was 18, so I was still living with my parents in the beginning. I got out on my own halfway through his first term. I was able to find a job and help support my small growing family, and things were good. I’m 21 now, and he was coming up on his second term, things were still good, I’m about to have a baby, fuck it, let’s keep him in there. I’m roughly 25 now, I have a better job than what I did before, but it’s now one war, a terrorist attack, and a housing market crash later. I happened to work for a bank at the time, and witnessed a lot of good people lose jobs and their homes because of the variable rate mortgage crisis. This alone was a reason for me to think about voting in a new political party in 2008 because I didn’t want to see the same type of events continue to happen.

“Change” and “Hope” were what I wanted too, so I helped usher in a historical POTUS. I drank his Kool-aid. Two years later I was let go from the bank because a lot of financial institutions were just then feeling the grunt of the housing crash, hemorrhaging money from every orifice due to all the foreclosed properties they were drowning in, capital losses because the federal reserve was slashing rates on interest bearing accounts, and making it ridiculously hard for anyone to get any type of loan because the lending guidelines had been so constricted, that banks had to find a way to lessen the bleeding by laying employees off as a means to justify recouping some of their losses. Was all of that Obama’s fault? No. I recognized he was coming into a mess, and he seemed to be trying to clean it up. As he approached his second term, I thought, “Ya know, he had to clean all that other shit up before he could really hit the ground running and clear a path for all the hope and change his administration is going to bring.” That’s how I justified it to myself to give him my vote and the White House for a second term.

Now mind you, these past 16 years, there were plenty of people who didn’t agree with the choices I made politically. I had friends who were fervently against both parties, and they knew that I had chosen to support them, at length, during both presidencies. In neither instance, however, did my judgement or level of education or color of my skin come into play after casting my vote. I recognized on my own that I had bought into the game after the fact. I had not only eaten the political propaganda sandwiches that both candidates served up, but I asked for fucking seconds. BOTH GOD DAMN TIMES.

It was nearing the close of Obama’s term(s), and I had to ask myself, why even vote? Politics are a joke. Politicians are ALL liars. The whole reason one of them ends up in the White House is because they had a better poker face when telling their lies. I was really done. I knew Hillary was going to run for the DEMS, and I already established I wasn’t going to be voting for her because I was unhappy with the previous eight years of Democratic rule, so suffice it to say, I wasn’t going on that ride again. As far as the Republican ticket was concerned, I had a feeling Bush #3 was going to get the nomination, and I didn’t like how W's rule went either, so I just wasn’t going to participate.

Flash forward to June 16, 2015 when Trump descended down an escalator at Trump Tower and kicked off his campaign for president. He announced his run for the 2016 presidential election. Admittedly, like the rest of the world, I thought this was a joke. How can someone with no political experience run for president, and expect to win at that? In the months leading up to the presidential debates, I internally laughed at the idea of watching Trump take the stage with the other candidates. At this point, I was still on the fence about voting. I figured just sit back and watch the shit show because this one is going to be a doozy. I was right and wrong. Kind of. Let me explain. It was a shit show in the fact that it was still a typical election campaign. All of the standard smearing and fear mongering of the opponents' platform took place as expected. What I didn’t expect, however, was basically everything that came out of Trump’s mouth. Good and bad, and there was plenty of both. For the record, “the bad” I never pay that much attention to for either party because a majority of it is what is used by one candidate to get you to vote for the other candidate, and if I wanted to focus solely on people shit talking each other, I would reminisce on my high school years, so I just block it out. Agree or not, it’s part of my decision-making process. The “good” for me with him was that I found him saying some of the same things I did when I was talking myself out of voting. The lies, the inability to find jobs, middle class economics were shitty, government handouts being abused, people not being taken care of, not agreeing with how things were implemented with the ACA, getting people at home back on their feet before we take care of others, condemning of the behavior of politicians and Washington. And to top it all off, he wasn’t a politician. He seemed like a regular guy talking to regular people about concerns regular people had with how things have been done up to this point.

Now, I explained all of that to you (even though I shouldn’t have to fucking explain to anyone my thought process on anything ever, especially voting, because as an American, I have earned that right regardless of what you agree with or not) so those of you who don’t understand how I could vote for Trump can see why. It’s not because I’m a racist or a hillbilly. It’s not because I’m uneducated. It’s not because I’m stupid or because I want White privilege to be a thing. It’s not for any of the bullshit reasons that people are slamming Trump supporters. It’s because I have lived through the alternatives already for 16 years, and I am not happy with how some of the governmentally affected portions of my life have turned out. Fun fact, I’m allowed to have those feelings. I’m also allowed, and fortunate enough to be able to attempt have a say in how the next few years may or may not go. For me, this was a change. I have hopes for this change. If things do change, great. If they don’t, then guess what, I can make another decision to try to get the change I want in another four years. Same as all of you. But because my change isn’t the change YOU wanted to see, doesn’t give you the right to demean me or scoff at my ideology. Like I said very early on in this rant, many people in my life thought of me as a good person before Trump, and newsflash, I’ve been that person the whole time. I’ve never changed. Who I choose to vote for doesn’t retroactively change the person you have ALWAYS liked. So, to see people on social media that I care about and I thought cared about me say that Trump supporters are pieces of shit, and stupid, and all kinds of other horrible things, it hurts. It may be a generalized statement and a statement made out of anger or whatever, but it still hurts. Your hatred for this man is turning you all into the exact thing you’re swearing daily that he is going to bring to our country. As far as I can see, it’s all of YOU doing that. I may not agree with your political views, but I would never demean you if I considered you a friend because of them. I haven’t at this point in my life, and I don’t intend on doing it anytime soon.

Sadly, once this goes live, and if people actually read it, I know I will lose followers on social media. Not because I’ve done anything wrong or attacked a certain person or idea, but because people who didn’t already know I voted for Trump now will, and that means my vote changes who I have always been for 35 years. I have already lost a few prior to posting this, and actually that is what prompted me to write it. I had to see if all of this craziness I am seeing on a daily basis was as fucking ridiculous in print as it was in real life.

B-T-DUBS, it TOTALLY is.

At any rate, I appreciate you reading if you did. I would also appreciate you sharing if you agree, can relate, or just want more people to hate me for voting for Trump. Either way, thanks.