I was born in the United States of America in 1963.
My father was a 4th generation Republican – the old school “fiscal conservative-socially liberal” Lincoln Republican. He died at the age of 92 in October 2018, still a registered Republican and still a moderate, rational human being. He wrote letters to the GOP frequently about how the Grand Old Party had abandoned its founding principles and was betraying its history and purpose.
Yes, as a 5th generation Republican in 1984, I voted for Ronald Reagan. I was naive. I apologize. Though Reagan’s Democratic opponent (remember Walter Mondale – yeah, no one does) may have been forgettable, the fact is Reagan was a disaster for the future economy and the foreign and domestic policies of the United States.
Even at my young age of 21, I understood “trickle down economics” was a snow job disaster in the making, designed to make the rich even richer — without having to earn that wealth. The new Billionaire Class did not “EARN” their financial wealth, they acquired it through manipulation of unjust systems.
After 1984, I became an Independent voter, with a brief foray as a registered Moderate Republican in Alaska, to try to help get that party moving. Of course the Moderates fizzled out, and the GOP just went further off the deep end.
Now we have Trump and MAGA. That broke my father’s heart. He told me, not long before he died, that he “did not join the Marines in WWII to stop fascism in Europe only to live to see it take hold in the United States.”
The two extremes, right and left have failed, but they continue to be heard, while those willing to compromise, think analytically, and have civil discussions with people of differing opinions watch in horror as the nation falls apart.
All the letters I wrote to my Senators, Representatives, the RNC and the DNC, and the White House were for naught. All that did was put me on lists to hit me up for donations.
So what can people – who still have empathy, compassion, and a working brain – do to create a better world? It starts with learning how and why the world got so screwed up, then learn ways to work around the systems in place while also protecting ourselves from the raging stupidity that has taken over so many facets of our lives.
THINK LEARN CHANGE