Ever since I was old enough to vote, I've voted Republican. Not because I have any deep love for Republicans, but because the Democrats are so wedded to abortion as a platform necessity that my conscience doesn't allow me to vote for them. When I've said, in the past, "I vote Republican," I meant, "I vote pro-life."
But thanks to Trump virtually clinching the nomination by winning Indiana, I'm freed from the tyranny of the party. I don't have to identify as a Republican anymore. When someone asks me if I'm a Democrat or a Republican, I can say neither! And for the first time, I can vote for someone I like for president. Who gets my write-in vote? Which person do I actually think would be best suited to run the country? It's almost overwhelming.
Free, free, I'm free at last.
I switched my voter registration to independent months ago. It is indeed liberating.
ReplyDeleteI switched my registration to independent in the hopes of being able to vote for my namesake, Bernie. Alas, though, it looks like by the time of the California primary, the First Felon will have completed buying the Democratic nomination. My suggestion as to whom to vote for is as simple as ABC: Anyone but Clinton.
ReplyDeleteHear hear. I was thinking this, saying this to my husband yesterday - finally free from "hold your nose and vote the lesser of two evils" once they become indistinguishable. And if Trump runs to the left of HRC, it might wake some up to the idea that "Republican" and "Conservative" (esp. SOCIAL conservative, but really any type of conservative) aren't actually the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm still registered Republican because I haven't fixed it yet. I attended our GOP county convention, where we actually approved a very lovely county platform, full of things I didn't know we could still support in polite society (subsidiarity, mother-father families as building block of society and primary educators of children, dignity of all life from conception to natural death, etc). And I was hoping I might get to cast a not-Trump vote in our primary here in WA and actually make a difference for once, despite our late May date.... But I guess that last hope has gone...west. I started my voting years as a pro-life Democrat - I even have a shirt, from when I lived in Boston the year they had their convention there, and I went to a Pro-Life Democrats' rally. But I haven't dared wear the shirt for years.
I fear people will still treat "Republican" and "Conservative" as synonyms, despite all the evidence to the contrary, but I hope this will shake people out of that rut.
I agree with all you've stated in your article, although I am a registered Democrat. I registered that way to join the voting crowd in my youth. I've never voted specifically for any one party.
ReplyDeleteI vote Catholic, that's how I identify myself and why I haven't switched my party affiliation. I don't vote party. I've read the follow on 'Indiana result articles' all morning and it cracks me up when they say "your guy lost, so get over it and now let’s unite with the guy you don't agree with...for the sake of the party"….Hello, I don’t vote party!
I've even read some Catholic blogger who says basically Cruz was not as much of an Alpha dog as Trump was and we should learn from Trump on how to package the message like him.
....oh please, maybe Jesus would have had the crowd behind him if he had been more of an Alpha dog and packaged his message better?
Trump was not my candidate on Monday and he still isn't by candidate on Wednesday. He hasn't changed one bit, so why would I give him my vote? I still can't vote my Catholic conscience for him.
I went independent some months ago, before Trump had even taken the lead in the polls, because it became clear to me that being pro-life was unthinkable for the Republican leadership in Oregon. My wife will be following suit now that Trump has the nomination. It is hard to believe how well Trump has done. But I too feel freer, now that I am without a party.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, how do you respond to the arguments that voting other than Republican or Democrat is "wasting" your vote?
ReplyDeleteI've met few enough people making that argument in what seems to be good faith that I generally don't respond to it at all.
ReplyDeleteOn a practical level, you might say that my votes for Romney and McCain were wasted. And my Ohio primary vote for Kasich -- for whom I didn't want to vote, either -- seems to have been wasted as well. But voting achieves two objectives: one is to add one more vote to the probability of a certain candidate winning, and the other is to compile information about the election itself. The day before the last presidential election, the numbers seemed to make it fairly likely that Obama would win, and yet I voted for Romney to add to the tally of citizens who opposed a Democratic agenda.
At this point I don't want to throw my support behind the heirs-presumptive of either the Democrats or the Republicans, so my vote isn't wasted if it's not added to that tally. If I contributed to either a Trump or a Clinton presidency, I'd certainly feel like I'd forfeited something more precious than a vote, and that would be my conscience.