On January 4th I made the decision to officially leave the Democratic Party. Although individual votes no longer count for much due to gerrymandering, the Electoral College, political tribal mentality – thus blue states and red states – and regardless of what a few diehard patriots may say, this was a rather important decision for me.
Perhaps I’ll start by explaining with a brief summary of where I stood in the past in regard to politics. The need to identify myself politically began at Ohio State in the College of Business in 1998. Students in the College of Business are mostly Republican because the GOP is the pro-business party and business is what the students are taught. Conversely students in the College of Arts are almost uniformly Democrats because that is what they are taught. As a double major in both International Business and Spanish I had the privilege of experiencing both sides and both sides became very political in the year 2000.
The reason campus became politically charged is because the janitors at Ohio State had gone on strike (not exactly Vietnam was it!) and campus was turning into a mess. Those in the College of Arts wore badges supporting the janitors while it was not uncommon to hear snide remarks in the College of Business encouraging the workers to get back to work or find another job if they were unsatisfied with pay. Socialism vs. Capitalism at its finest with sporadic debates and protests throughout campus.
It was at this time I became a Republican because I was tired of having a dirty campus and the argument that these people should find another job if they were unsatisfied made sense to me. After all, if you pull something like this in the corporate world you simply get fired. In business you’re promoted on merit unlike these beggars who hold a university (or company) hostage because they want more money!
Aside from at the College of Arts at OSU, the first time I really ran into opposition with this line of thinking was when I studied at the Centre de Linguistique Appliquée in Besançon, France. There were some students from some small elite private school and I was the only “Republican” in the room. I put Republican in quotes because I don’t believe I had ever voted before let alone filled out any forms to become a Republican; I simply agreed with the Republican line of thinking more than I did that of the Democrats. I remember how surprised the other students were and I heard that local French news was actually looking for me to get the opinion of the only student who supported George W. Bush – I declined to be interviewed mostly because my French wasn’t good enough for politics and I really didn’t care much about politics – but I did care about Ohio State campus being clean!
It wasn’t until I had lived in Japan for a while that my opinions started to change. Now 2003 was a long time ago but luckily I have another blog which serves as my journal and goes much farther back than this blog. In it I found an e-mail to my father from March 2003 on my thoughts about the Iraq War.
Being out of the country for quite a bit of the last couple of years, I’ve made a lot of new friends and have had the opportunity to see many different viewpoints. The fact is a good part of the world now really hates America. This is to be expected. But I’ve started reading papers in other languages and from different countries. The American press has painted such a nice clean pretty picture of the war. I think to be a rational well informed person you should look at both sides of the picture and only then can you have a well rounded picture and form a well educated opinion. Now CNN and all the other major networks are giving only the news that Americans want to hear so they can feel good about themselves.Well here are some interesting sites that paint another more horrid picture of the war.http://www.aljazeerah.info/ <– The main source of information for a huge portion of the worlds Arabs (In English)http://www.informationclearinghouse.info <– can see the videos the gov’t doesn’t really want you to see about the war.
Now there may be some propaganda in these sites but it is good to realize that the American press also spews propaganda that Americans can’t see because:1. They are American2. The American public is stupid (er) (than most) and know absolutely nothing about the world outside America’s borders.I also read an article in the Dispatch a couple days ago about what the good folks in Richie’s tavern think about the war (they are all Pro-War)(“Views of War Fuel Tension, Confrontations” by Lornet Turnbull) and that when someone spoke against the war a patron went outside and beat him up. The article made it seem almost humorous that the Anti-war protester got beat up. The same article mentioned that someone reported to police a Middle Eastern person driving down the highway.I also wish the media would quit interviewing moron Americans about their views of the war which are of course moronic. The people that should be interviewed are experts on Iraq who have been to Iraq and know Iraqi people. Then if they could get opposing views then I would consider that news. I don’t give a flying F#ck about what the people at Richies Tavern on the West side think about the war.One final though about that.. If Saddam did have WMD, don’t you think he would have used them by now? Or is he just playing nice?
Reading my e-mail I remember how much pushback I received from many of my acquaintances in America on my stance. Everyone was so pro-war! And now here we are in 2016 and everyone does their best to distance themselves from any previous support for the war. It was wrong to invade Iraq and done so on a lie. The American public remains stupid and with the election of Donald Trump seem to have become even more-so.
Due to the Iraq War I abruptly switched from being a “Republican” who never voted to being a Democrat who still didn’t vote because I was living overseas and still not very motivated to go through the overseas ballot process.
I spent three years in Japan, two in Vietnam and I met some pretty amazing and very intelligent people. The vast majority of these people leaned Democratic, or Labour, or whatever party shares similar ideals in their individual countries. The only Republicans were to be found in the exclusive foreigner clubs. These were those who felt taking all they could from a host country was acceptable. These were the people who could not speak a lick of the language and thought all the natives should speak English.
It was at this time that I began to hate Republicans. Republicans to me were middle aged white guys who were pro-war, pro-pollution, pro-rape foreign countries, and were generally just assholes to people unlike them.
Well, my opinion of them certainly did not change when I came back to the USA. It wasn’t long before Obama was elected and the face of the Republicans were Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other old white guys spewing out a constant barrage of hate – and have continued doing so right up until the present!
I still hate Republicans, nothing there has changed. But what has changed is the absolute failure of the Democrats; they squandered such a great opportunity back with the election of Obama and all the momentum that came with it. The Democrats had control of Congress from 2009 – 2011 but not total control of the Senate. But it was the opinion of many even where I am, in Nancy’s home base of San Francisco that she overreached; she did not cooperate with Obama, went too far with her gamble and ended up losing control of Congress over it! She failed regardless of not having control of the Senate. If she had done a better job she could have convinced a few Republicans in the Senate to join her cause. But she did not, she failed.
Now here we are in 2016 and I see news articles grading Obama’s presidency and giving him decent marks. Now I agree that he did lots of great things and I still really want to be a fan. I’m also quite cognizant in that there are a vast number of things that the President cannot control. But I would also say that one of the top priorities of the President, of the Democratic party is to make sure you win the next election. Hell, that is what both Republicans and Democrats do anyway, ensuring their team wins in elections and in this the Democrats have failed most spectacularly with a clean sweep of the entire government to the Republicans.
This incredible earthquake caused me to examine my current political affiliation and my mood started to sour even more. The first and foremost reason that I’m leaving is due to one person:
Hillary Clinton
I do not like her but I did not always detest her and even voted for her. Before I get to particulars let me start by stating why I really did not want her to be president.
The main reason is simply because she is the wife of a former president and keeping the presidency a family affair looks a lot to me like what goes on in Latin America. Don’t cry for me Argentina and Kirchner (Eva Peron part deux?) who is now in hot water. This type of scene has been overplayed and become boring. Politics becomes a family affair, they pillage the country, they lose power, then they get prosecuted and either thrown in jail or not.
I also heard from those who worked for her that she is a terrible leader. For instance I heard she once made the head of another state wait for a couple hours while she got a massage. When she finally showed up this particular head of state had left and you know who was upset about this? Hillary and her fucking spoiled, bratty staff!!
AND I also heard some inside info on how she blatantly ignored all the security warnings in Benghazi which of course caused loss of life for American diplomatic staff. I never believe Republicans but what I heard came from a trusted source and really put me off.
I also heard from a global hotel manager that Hillary once wanted a very beautiful and exquisitely designed iron framed bed taken out of the penthouse where she stayed. Well, it was hand crafted in that room and too large to be taken out, so what did Hil Hil do? She demanded it be cut apart and taken out. Well, I also heard Bill calmed her down and it wasn’t cut. A small thing perhaps but it is these small things that give great insight into a person’s character. None of my friends would demand such a thing so why would we allow powerful politicians to act as cunts? Why do they get a pass?
And to top it all, now that Hillary has lost, do you know what the media writes? There are articles about how Hillary is coping, about how she was robbed of the presidency, ABOUT HOW THE ELECTORATE IS SORRY FOR LETTING HER DOWN!!!
That’s it, I’m done. The Democratic party has not only failed in one of the worst failures in terms of possible ramifications in the entire history of Democracy, but have also become a party of complete pussies.
I had this epiphany very suddenly the other day from a very unlikely and even unrelated source! I was reading the social feed on the Japanese study website I use. A user posted a video of a pretty young girl in a bikini running on a treadmill, simply asking what people thought it was about. Well, one user, appropriately named “Alpha_Geek” wrote: “Objectifying women is a really shitty way to encourage learning. What a terrible site. I am deleting my account.”
You know what? I bet this user is a millennial who needs a safe space. And you know what else? I bet he is a Democrat.
It was with this one comment that I took a hard look at all the political correctness, about all the gender bathroom discussions, about the weakening of the male role model let alone the weakening of the United States. If there is one message that was spot on from Trump it is that China is eating our lunch, that many citizens have been left behind with the global economy and that the United States is weakening.
Furthermore, Black Lives Matter didn’t do Democrats any favors. Yes, of course there is racism that needs an honest, national discussion but very bad timing with all your protests BLM, you just did get white-lashed, no doubt about it. You also need to take some blame for the election of Trump but you won’t, just like most Democrats. BLM vilified the police and what white voters saw on the news was a bunch of hooligans looting and killing police. The timing for BLM with Trump on the horizon was absolutely terrible. And you know what? I bet a good majority of BLM participants didn’t even vote.
I then thought about all the people streaming across America’s borders. Now this blog is the Global Citizen and yes, I’m all for free movement of people, I’m all for people taking steps to better their lives. But yes, this needs to all be done legally, it is a damn mess right now and as far as I know, no other country would stand for it. If I did the same in Mexico or any other Latin American country the police would kidnap me, rob me and I’d have to pay a hell of a bribe. America has been extremely lenient and illegal immigration needs to be brought under control. So what would I do? I would make it extremely easy for immigrants to become citizens!! America was founded by immigrants, it is in our DNA, even if most Americans have forgotten. If a legal means to becoming a citizen were relatively simple then the arguments against would be defanged and we’d not need any stupid wall which only serves as a terrible symbol of racism, ignorance and hate.
With all the thoughts above running through my head I came to one simple conclusion with Alpha_Geek’s comment and it is this:
The Democratic Party has become a party full of pussies and like a spurned lover I’m very upset with them, so upset I’ve left their club and once I’ve been spurned I don’t come back. To illustrate, upon returning home from Japan for a rare visit one of my good friends was too busy to meet with me and it really hurt my feelings. It hurt so bad that we’re still not friends 15 years later and never will be again.
Well, the Democrats have done worse than hurt my feelings. They’ve given us four years of Trump. Hillary didn’t get her presidency and everyone is so sad for her. Boo-fucking-hoo. This is going to be a nasty four years and it is Hillary and the Democrats fault.
But if I’m leaving the Democrats then where do I go? The Republicans are still a party of assholes so this leaves me a Ronin! I am alone in the wilderness with no master, no direction. I have officially informed the State of California that I am a DtS – Decline to State or as they say now a NPP (No Party Preference.) While we’re talking acronyms I’d rather be down with OPP but we’ll leave terrible jokes out of this.
So where does this leave my current political thought process and what do I identify with? Well, a coffee company commercial of course! I’ve often said that the main purpose of America is money, to make a profit no matter how many parades or propaganda is spewed. So it makes perfect sense that I now support the political ideology of the Black Rifle Coffee company. I do not see why I have to limit my political affiliation to an actual political party? America is bought and paid for by companies, so is it so unnatural that we just skip over the political parties when they do the will of corporations anyway?
Why not just cut the middle man and vote in executives from corporations? And is that not what Trump is doing anyway? Food for thought!
The Black Rifle Coffee Company has a better message on How to be American. This is highly ironic since just over a decade ago I would have identified with a video with a much different message – Team America: World Police. But nope, I’m tired of all the crying, of what Hillary did to the party, of all the fucking boo-hoo-hoo that has come to be the Democratic Party. I am so disappointed in them.
Reversing course in 2017
Update: 1.18.2017 – I saw in the news that there is speculation Hillary could run for Mayor of New York and she isn’t ruling it out. That’s it, I’ve gone from being severely disappointed to officially hating the Democratic Party.
