DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS

I grew up in a Democratic environment. My parents were Democrats. As an adult for many years I considered myself an Independent. For years, I did not register with either party. However years ago when I was living in Illinois I registered once as a Republican because I wanted to vote in the Republican primary for Anderson, a moderate Republican, who was running against Reagan to be the Republican candidate for president. When I went in to the booth to vote, there was no Anderson on the ballot and no Reagan, just a bunch of strange names. I went out of the booth to the judges table and asked why Reagan and Anderson were not on the ballot and who are all these strange people? There was no answer from the Republican judges, but the Democratic judge took pity on me and led me far away from the polling booths. She explained that the names are electors. Thompson, the head of the Illinois Republican party, put the only electors names on the ballot instead of the candidates they represented. Apparently Thompson and the Illinois Republican establishment favored Reagan, and in this way the party faithful were clued in to who was the elector for Reagan, but outsiders like me would be clueless. Needless to say, Reagan carried Illinois in the nomination and ultimately carried the nation to become president. I went back to being an Independent who usually voted Democratic.

In recent years since the Radical Right has radicalized the Republican party, I have given up the illusion of being an Independent and have become a registered Democrat. I consider myself slightly left of center. Those on the extreme left might derisively call me a neo-liberal. I believe in a well regulated capitalism that serves the public, not just a few fast buck gluttons who think only of how the wealthiest few can gather as much $ as possible without consideration for the rest of us or who they must trample on to achieve their goals. On the other hand we don’t have to demonize all of the corporate world as long as they share some of those $ for the public good.

Since Trump has become president, I have joined the Resistance. I wrote post cards for Doug Jones who is now a senator from Alabama. And I wrote post cards for a Democrat in Florida who is running for state representative. I don't like to demonize anyone, but Trump really has taken the Republican party to a new low. He lies. He conspired with Putin, the Russian dictator, to hack America to give Trump the edge he needed to eke out a majority in the electoral college (although he lost the popular vote) to win the presidency. Now the Radical Republicans and Trump have pushed through a tax bill which will impoverish America by raiding our Treasury to give $ to the gluttons at the expense of the rest of us. We can only hope that the Democrats can win the Congress next year to put a brake on the Republican rape of the American economy.