48 years, After Last Night, A Republican No More

Perot 2, Bush 2, Obama 2, Clinton, Biden.

Perhaps this statement is long overdue. Still registered republican, I’ve been calling my self a proud RINO and a CUCK since 2016.

I didn’t know how to quit you, GOP. BIDEN showed me how!

I was prepared to vote Republican in 2016. Even though I despised Trump, long before he announced his candidacy in 2015, I almost voted for him, thinking he would never be as bad as we joked. He was worse.

In the past four years I’ve heard those that joked about conspiracy nuts in the past regurgitate the strangest lies.

I’ve had smart rational people, many that I love, claim Trump never lies.

My response, Trump contradicts himself in a given breath. I’ll buy you think Trump is best for your 401k but don’t tell me you buy into this nonsense. They did.

I shed a lot of tears the past four years: tears of disappointment, shame, confusion, anger… the full spectrum.

Far too many times this lead to me cursing out my father, and even threatening violence to the one I discovered was passing the propaganda emails, always full of claims, never with proof or authorship. Emails laced with racist motives. This bombardment of propaganda from internet, alternative media and drunks at the bar combined for a serious brainwashing decades in the making.

I suppose I checked out of the GOP long ago but I have resisted leaving the party for two decades officially for two decades.

I was a child of the Reagan era, and from a family that arguably benefited from those policies, or at least we’re not left behind. I was the son of two republicans: One that to this day votes straight GOP without question and one that taught me to question everything, although seems to be voting straight GOP in recent years, despite claiming discomfort with what is heard from Trump and others (like so many GOP politicians that talk the talk before voting the deplorable).

By the 90s the company my father worked for was bought and sold so that large corporations could get access to software for free. My own father survived the hostile takeovers treating a company he basically help build from the ground like chips on a poker table.

I remember my mom complaining about the diminishing benefits. We started going to the best doctors. By the time we were going to HMO as an only choice of the new parent company plan, as a child I noticed the change in health care quality and service.

I went from knowing all my doctors' names to being one in a factory assembly line.

The irony is my father is an actuary, developing and trouble shooting software for benefit plans. I remember when the pension plan became a 401k, which benefits a savvy few.

In 2002 I started a theatrical showcase that became my day job in 2005. As an actor, I was a republican surrounded by liberals, but now I was also a producer, a small business owner, an entrepreneur. The GOP line seemed like the smart bet, on paper.

I was ready to vote for McCain in 2007 until Sarah Palin brought her brand of whacky conspiracy theory policies to the table. Obama sounded so inspirational, I was hooked, even if I was still a moderate republican in my mind.

For eight years at family gatherings I watched men in my family, and their friends, become the drunk nut jobs at the end of the bar they used to make fun, for the first time, at least in my ear shot, regurgitating the rhetoric put forth by right wing media. I still watched FOX NEWS but dismissed the whackados, much the way I do with far left opinions on MSNBC and CNN now.

In 2015, I thought, let’s get Jeb or Kasich in there to bring the country back to the center right. Trump was a joke. I had no idea what was brewing in my own family, never mind my party.

“This guy gets it!” Wait, what?????

Suddenly the nuts job fringes of the GOP were at my door step, at Thanksgiving dinner and 💯 mainstream, by GOP standards.

I think the problem is, the rhetoric of the Tea Party and MAGA sounds hopeful, until you realize the forces behind these parties.

I realized during the FREEDOM PARTY stage where this was all headed.

I have been agonizing for five years with my own conversion.

Last night left me thinking.

Obama bail outs and Trump tax cuts added trillions to deficit with zero benefit to America. This money went to CEOs and stick buy backs. This money went to yachts and 401k. This money did not create jobs, or trickle down.

Biden was right, Tickle Down economics is a myth.

Biden’s plans will lead to both jobs AND money spent in America.

The money I got from COVID stimulus went 💯 into rent, gas, food, utilities, and even creating jobs for actors in my employ. It is the only free money I received in the past 14 months of economic hardship. I did not get a penny in unemployment, grants, or loans (which I probably could not afford to pay back).

With May rent already paid, I have the mental calm now I need to get my business back on track which crates work for a number of other actors.

In my 30 years as a legal voter, nothing Republicans or Democrats have achieved stopped jobs from going over seas. Touring the country with my comedy show was often depressing. Entire strip malls are dead - Entire towns.

Last night Biden laid out infrastructure plans that will create jobs that cannot be sent away.

The New Deal dragged us out of the Great Depression.

The Great Society rebuilt after WW2.

Reagan killed taxes and regulations that built America up.

When I was 18 that sounded like a good idea. Less government sounded awesome.

Biden’s plan does not lead to overseers, socialism or communism. Biden’s plan is a return to the America that MAGA loved, but is wrong in how to get it back.

Trump’s catering to the worst in us gave rise to thinking the difference now is the way America looks.

Biden’s plan brings America back to it’s beating heart that truly made us great, except now, EVERYONE will benefit.

Those that have reaped the greatest rewards of the past 40 years will pay the most for the future.

I was never a right wing nut, but I have gone full circle on philosophy. I bought into reaganomics. I now am 💯 behind Biden’s vision of America.

But what really got me last night was the total silence on so many easy topics. Usually a joke to me, last night the things folks stood and applauded for were beyond telling.

Too many times, the most level headed republicans sat silent, in fear of their base, on issues including job creation.

GOP stands in opposition to everything, and leads on nothing, except providing haven, a political home, for the worst among us.

I was beyond disgusted and disappointed with the party I called home for 29 years.

So much so I brand myself as a full throated progressive now.

My friends on the left have suffered real pain at the hands of racists, sexists and homophobic monsters.

This is beyond policy. This is humanity. This is decency. Norman Rockwell’s Americana no longer has a place in my heart knowing it has caused so much pain to so many.

I now drive though small town America I used to adore and see the horrors or racism and sexism of the past 400 years. Historic landmarks no longer inspire patriotism but wonders of the real stories I told.

I’m not hating on America, I just question everything now, as everyone should.

On the bright side, as depressed as I have been at times in recent years, I truly believe America’s best years are ahead, thanks to Biden and the hard works of so many progressives fighting for TRUE equality and hope for ALL Americans.