An old joke, what do you call a young Republican? A Democrat!
I am an example of a Democrat who became a Republican. In college, I was western Nebraska colleges coordinator in Robert Kennedy’s 1968 primary run and was with him on a campaign train ride across Nebraska.
When he was assassinated in California, I did not support Hubert Humphrey but voted for him.
In college I wrote a paper on World War II bomber crews. A request to Sen. George Mc-Govern got me a long letter and even a phone call to give me more information on his experiences.
Later I was elected secretary of the Grand Island/Hall County Democrat Party and met him in person and established a friendship with him. I voted for McGovern knowing he would never carry Nebraska — he, in fact, only carried one state in the biggest landslide in years!
About this time, I married a Republican — there are a lot of them in Nebraska!
We moved to Iowa in time for the Iowa caucus as Democrats sought a candidate to go against Gerald Ford. The large field included Sen. Joe Biden who gave a beautiful campaign speech only to have another Democrat candidate point out it was a speech by British politician Neil Kennick. Biden became a joke with every famous saying jokingly attributed to Biden. Humiliated, Biden dropped out - and hated Iowa so much he stopped it from having the first caucus in the nation when he ran again for president years later!
Jimmy Carter captured the support from both of us in that caucus. Carter told Iowans that the federal government was too large and had way too many employees. He planned to reduce unnecessary agencies and reduce the federal payroll. He added if he ever lied to us, he was not worthy of our vote and to not vote for him.
In Maryland, Carter, when asked about cutting federal employees, said he only wanted to reorganize the government and that he was not going to cut the number of federal employees. We did as he said to do in Iowa and voted against him. We later, like most of America, voted for Reagan in his landslide victories over both Carter and Mondale.
I found myself agreeing more with Republican candidates. That does not mean I have only voted for Republicans since, but I have watched the Democrat Party change.
I watched as the Clinton-Kaine campaign come up with the phony Steele Dossier to be an October surprise. It went nowhere during the campaign, but Democrats used it to claim Trump worked with the Russians to win the election. Neither Clinton nor Kaine came forward to say the dossier was a phony and the government spend millions of dollars only to find the document was a fake.
The “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax got exposed but the attacks on Trump continued as Covid hit. Trump and VP Pence in record speed got not one but three vaccines to fight Covid and got it distributed not only across the country in record time but distributed to the world as well.
Democrats responded with lies like Trump suggested people inject deadly disinfectants and began a coordinated campaign to destroy him financially with truly questionable charges including borrowing money and paying it back on time with interest!
Biden got elected and proved to be a disaster and people still are not sure who was in charge and authorized using the autopen illegally signing government documents and pardons?
Since that time, Democrats have done some really dumb things including over a monthlong government shutdown that has resulted in federal employees going without pay and having to take out loans or take money from retirement accounts to feed their family. The result has caused delays and cancellations and a dangerous situation at airports as TSA and air controllers go without pay and having to find second jobs.
The reason for the shutdown is Democrats want to spend another $1.5 trillion for health care for illegal immigrants that flooded into the country under the Biden administration and to bail out a failed or unneeded government programs. Senators Warner and Kaine have supported this shutdown ignoring former President Obama who said there was no justification for ever shutting down the government!
In the recent Virginia elections, the Democrats won, electing an extreme liberal for governor but also elected a lieutenant governor who refused to debate her opponent knowing her un-American comments would be made public and Jay Jones attorney general.
Leading law enforcement agencies ranging from police and sheriff’s organizations called for Jones to discontinue his campaign after he had called for “killing police,” endangering the public by driving at a reported 116 MPH, and writing how he wanted to not only kill a political opponent but his young children in front of their mother!
Despite calls from law enforcement and others in both parties for him to discontinue his run, the Democrat governor candidate could not bring herself to call for him to do this and Democrats came out to vote for him!
I used to be a Democrat, but it now seems the Democrat Party I knew is as dead as the Whig Party! I thought it was just the Democrat Party going crazy in their hatred of Trump, but the Virginia election makes me think it is perhaps more.
Locally, Democrats held up signs on street corners calling for free speech yet brought in outsiders to Buena Vista Labor Day event to drown out all Republican speakers ruining what has been for over 50 years a chance for the public to hear both political parties and independent candidates. Apparently, free speech should only apply to Democrats.
When I was a Democrat, calls for violence, shutdowns that hurt people, politics of hate and personal destruction were not the norm. How radical is the current Democrat Party? A Gallup poll found 66% of Democrats favor socialism over capitalism and only 42% favored capitalism! Will Democrat politics continue like this? A question for your consideration.
