I used to be a Republican. I grew up in Wisconsin and supported the party’s senator from my district. I knocked on doors for Dan, I handed out magnets to students on campus and I wore his blue t-shirt. I even remember going to a dinner party for Dan one night and a woman called me a “good young Republican.”
That was a long time ago.
Since then, I’ve moved a few times, gone to college, met a true variety of really good people and have had just about every one of my stereotypes and biases broken in myriad ways. Funny how that happens.
Today the so-called Republican party isn’t quite like the one I supported in early 2000s. Back then, flawed as it was, the party seemed human, run by humans (for the most part) and it wasn’t hard to support the ones I liked even though I didn’t agree with everything a candidate said, or did. That was normal, and healthy. One of my flaws however, is that I made a lot of assumptions about Republican candidates and politicians and had plenty of pals around to reinforce my beliefs. I wanted to be right on Facebook, in text messages, in conversations. I couldn’t stand being wrong and refused to be if at all possible. Because of that, I didn’t do any critical thinking. I didn’t do any research. I didn’t need to ask questions because my opinions were right and Democrats were wrong. As it turns out, I was wrong.
Today the Republican party is a joke and I wish many of its followers were unimaginable. But they’re real. They loathe the truth and invent their own. They don’t actually care about the country any further than it impacts themselves. They love feeling powerful and they love being in concert with the nation’s flabbiest paper tiger—the one with the biggest stage. Trump is their guy and from what I know about Donald Trump, he is a really good friend (seriously, look into it—the guy is super loyal to his white, male buddies). But he’s still an asshole. Modern day Republicans have rallied around a leader who hates decency and is a proven racist. He is also a bully. A sexist. An adulterer. A liar. A narcissist. A phony. An idiot. A cheat. A hack. None of that should be a surprise to any literate person with internet access, yet the truth about their king is not only largely unknown to Trump supporters—they have no concern for it. He is their leader, the person this party currently loves to…
