A Relatively Brief Recollection of Events and Experiences Responsible for Shaping My Current Political Affiliation

The first time I had a conversation about politics, I was ten years old. Politics was not normally discussed in the house I grew up in. My parents did not vote or identify with a political party, so it just never really came up. In the Summer of 1988 we took a trip to see my Aunt and Uncle, and the dinner conversation turned to politics. I was pretty bright for my age, but most of the conversation was totally over my head.
After dinner, as I was trying to make sense of it all, I tried to get my Mother to explain more to me. I first asked her what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. She told me, "Republicans care more about rich people and Democrats care more about poor people."
Next I asked her, "which one are we?" Her response was, "well I aint either one, but you can be whatever you want, it's your choice."
"If we get rich, will we turn into Republicans?"
"No," she said. "The only way people get rich is if they are corrupt, and I aint corrupt, so we aint gonna be rich."
(My Mother always considered poverty to be a virtuous trait. She wore her poverty like a badge of honor. Later in life, I came to resent and dislike that about her.)
Next I tested boundaries, as kids often do, and I asked her "If I get rich and become a Republican, will you be mad at me?"
My step Dad jumped in and answered that one. "You get rich first, and then ask us. I don't think we would be mad at you though." Ironically, a few years later my step-day told me that he would disown me if he found out I was gay or if I decided to marry a black woman.

Six years later, I left home to go to Job Corps (a vocational education program for under-privileged teens.) Going from a small town in Idaho to a city like Portland, Oregon was a massive culture shock for me. I had never before met an openly gay person. I had never met anyone that practiced a religion other than Christianity. My parents did not prepare me for this, and I didn't know how to react. Luckily, I ended up in a room with a couple of Vietnamese exchange students. There was a language barrier, but we got along well. They were clean, respectful, and they played a lot of Tetris with me. If I would have ended up having to share a room with an openly gay student, I would have immediately dropped out of the program. I would have thrown away an opportunity for a free education, because at the time, I was that homophobic.
As I adapted to campus life, things changed rapidly. My new girlfriend was from Portland, and very liberal. She was bisexual, and I immediately decided that there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. She delighted in taking me out of my comfort zone, and increasing my levels of tolerance to diversity through exposure to things that shocked me.
The night before we all went home for Christmas vacation, my new girlfriend talked me into letting her paint my fingernails with black polish. Going back to my strictly Christian conservative family with black fingernails caused all kinds of problems. Ultimately, it was just another excuse for them to abuse me. (I may or may not get into the details of my severely traumatizing adverse childhood experiences. It all depends on how angry and drunk I am by the time I finish writing this.)

After finishing trade school, I started working in Portland, Oregon. I was eighteen years old, and I was certain that I would be a millionaire after just a few years in the workforce. I prepared myself for this eventuality by identifying myself as a Republican. Bill Clinton was POTUS at the time, and I had decided that I was not satisfied with the way he was running things. My life wasn't going the way I wanted, and I was convinced that it was his fault.
I didn't do well at my first job. I didn't get along well with co-workers. I was not satisfied with my low pay. After about six months of working in Portland, a friend convinced me to move to Las Vegas.
Vegas was a disaster. After a few months of struggling to find and keep work, I found myself in an army recruitment office. The recruiter told me all the lies I needed to hear, and I was desperate and naive enough to believe every single one of them.

My years in the army were rough. I had always been a bit of a weirdo, and the army hates individuality. I saw a lot of racism and homophobia. I saw a lot of bullying. I saw a lot of inefficient bureaucracy. I saw a lot of incompetence. I saw waste, fraud, and abuse of all kinds. Every time I saw something that disgusted me, I opened my mouth. Every time I opened my mouth, I did push-ups. By the time I got out, I had stretch marks on my arms and chest and could bench press over 300 lbs.

In 1996 I supported Bob Dole for President. I did not cast a ballot, but I did contribute $100 to the Republican Party

While training in Germany, I received a message from The American Red Cross informing me that my brother had died in a car accident. I have four brothers, and the message did not bother to tell me which one I had lost. I was in the field, where no phones were available. I had to be transported back to garrison by helicopter. It was a day and a half before I could finally call my Mother to find out which brother I had lost.
Red Cross has a program for soldiers that lose immediate family while serving overseas. They offer a no-interest loan for soldiers to buy airplane tickets to attend funerals. The cheapest tickets I could get to fly from Frankfurt, Germany to Boise, Idaho on one day's notice was just over three thousand dollars. A few months later, as I was being honorably discharged from service, The Red Cross informed me that I would not be able to submit paperwork to end my time in service until they got their money back. I was so desperate to get out of the army that I paid them as much as I had and signed paperwork granting them access to my final 2 paychecks. I was dead broke when I finally got out of the army. Had it not been for the kindness of some friends in Portland, I would have been one of these homeless vets we see sleeping under bridges.

My first day out of the Army was the happiest day of my life. It was also the first time I smoked marijuana. Up until then, I had categorized anyone that used drugs as a loser, and assumed that any kind of drugs would ruin a person's life. After getting high for the first time, I gained a whole new understanding of the counterculture. I had always prided myself on questioning authority, but after having experienced what smoking weed was actually like, I was shocked that the police were throwing people in jail for something so harmless. This new experimentation and exposure was still not enough to overcome two decades of programming from family, military, and right-wing radio. I was still disgusted with both Republicans and Democrats. The fact that I was illegally using marijuana every day was beginning to make an anarchist of me. I read an article in the local paper about Ralph Nader. He wanted to legalize marijuana and end U.S. dependence on fossil fuels by subsidizing renewable energy.

In 2000 I voted for Ralph Nader.

Like most other Americans, I became significantly more interested in politics after September 11th, 2001. I saw Bush rolling in dead bodies like a pig in shit, and was utterly outraged. I saw him take a moment of national unity to tell us to go shopping. I watched as he used the attacks to slip through legislation that gutted civil liberties. I felt that it was insulting and patronizing to every American for us to be told that we were attacked because "they hate our freedom." I started reading books and watching documentaries. Somewhere between the Creature from Jekyll Island and The Trials of Henry Kissinger I grew so disgusted with my government that I decided I was a Libertarian. I took my activism onto the internet and into the streets, and for a few years I even made a living from it.

In 2002 I began working for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. USPIRG is a non-profit non partisan citizens lobby that works on behalf of the public interest. They basically provide a counterbalance to the lobbyists and lawyers hired by big corporations by hiring lobbyists and lawyers to represent the public interest. We sued corporate polluters for poisoning the water people were drinking and the air people were breathing. We fought for stronger consumer protection laws. We lobbied to have national parks protected from industrialization. We kept logging and road-building out of designated wilderness areas. We stopped the Bush Administration from gutting laws that protected our drinking water. It was good work, and I am still quite proud of what I accomplished there.

The folks that worked at USPIRG were mostly solid blue Democrats. That was mostly due to the fact that the Democrats were much more friendly to the causes we were fighting for. It wasn't just lip service either. After we relentlessly lobbied and petitioned them, Democrats supported our causes by sponsoring the legislation we fought for and they voted for it. Meanwhile, Republicans mostly ignored us. I was the only libertarian in the office, so as usual, I was the oddball. After a long conversation, and a couple pitchers of beer, a co-worker talked me into reading two books that would change my life. Those books were "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, and "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky. The war in my mind was finally over. The truth of the situation was undeniable, and my third eye had been so thoroughly pried open that it would never again be closed.

I remember watching the speeches at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I was looking out for someone that I had heard about. He was to be the first actual member of USPIRG to ever give a speech at the DNC. He talked that night about the audacity of hope. He was saying things about equality, social justice, environmental issues, and civil rights that I had never heard from a politician before. He then humbled himself by saying that his hope was that America had a place for a skinny kid with a funny name. Throughout the whole speech, as I puffed on a joint and drank a 40 of Pabst, I just kept thinking, "man, I wish I was voting for that guy."

In 2004 I voted for John Kerry

The Bush years were a nightmare. I parted ways with USPIRG in 2005. The stress and grief of informing the public of the Bush administration's crimes against the planet became too much. As I watched the dead and wounded return from Iraq, my rage intensified. Some of them were people I knew personally, but all of them were my brothers and sisters in uniform. I knew that it was a war based on lies. It was never about weapons of mass destruction, or bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq. It was about money, same as it ever was.
The economy collapsed, the bankers got bailed out, and I was furious. Where the fuck was my bail-out? I went from having a good job with good pay to working for commissions in a sleazy telemarketing office. I was selling weed on the side, and started selling World of Warcraft gold too, but I still struggled every month. I almost had to move back to Idaho to go live with my parents. Thank God it never came to that. A great teacher once told me that "when the pendulum swings in one direction, it eventually sways back to it's opposite. I knew that if Barack Obama were to win, the pendulum would swing back.

In 2008 I voted for Barack Obama

I was right. Change had come, and it was change for the better. The economy recovered. My commission sales gig went from being poverty pay to the most money I had ever made. I started my own marketing business. I hired friends to work with me. I invested in Bitcoin. I got married and had kids.
Our first baby was not covered by Obamacare. We spent two days in the hospital, and paid over $12k out of pocket. Our second baby was covered by Obamacare. We spent three days in a much nicer hospital, and we didn't pay a penny out of pocket. Obamacare also gave me access to dental coverage, which I was not getting from the VA. Thanks to Obamacare, I saw a dentist for the first time in 10 years.

In 2012 I voted for Barack Obama

I sold my marketing business to one of my clients in 2013, and I haven't made a sales call since. I am so thankful that I will never ever have to degrade myself like that ever again. My wife got a good job doing something she enjoys. Weed got legalized, so I started growing it. Life just kept getting sweeter. Stoners were getting high. Gays were getting married. It was all legal. There wasn't a damn thing that angry conservatives could do about it. Our bodies, homes, and relationships were ours to do with as we please.
You know what the best part about the Obama years was? The way it pissed off the rednecks that hated him. They lacked the self awareness to be truly honest with themselves as to why they actually hated him so much, so they just made stuff up. They said he wasn't an American citizen. They said he was a Muslim. They said he was going to take everyone's guns away. They said he was going to bring Sharia law to America. These lies deflected from what was truly at the core of their hate. He represented everything they fear. An educated black man who managed to wield power and authority while simultaneously maintaining more dignity and class than any of them could ever have. He may as well have constructed a giant black cock, paraded it through the streets of America, and made it mandatory that every citizen publicly kiss it. Those who refused to do so would be immediately sent to a FEMA camp for re-education. It had to be true, because they heard Alex Jones talking about it. So much irrational fear on display. I should have seen the disaster coming. I had no idea what hatred and ignorance these fools were truly capable of.

2016 saw the emergence of Bernie Sanders, and I liked everything he was saying. My Mother died of a preventable illness before Obamacare had been enacted. She was only 59 years old. Healthcare in this country is a national embarrassment. Every other civilized country in the world provides their citizens with healthcare, but America doesn't. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies make insane profits while price-gouging Americans on life-saving medicine. We spend more than twice as much on healthcare per citizen, yet we live shorter lives. People in Canada think we are barbaric for bankrupting folks with medical bills, and they are right. I met a guy from Cuba that thought it was funny how many Americans wear glasses. Apparently hardly anyone wears prescription glasses in Cuba. They all have access to free corrective laser surgery.
I started giving Bernie Sanders $27 a month. I had no intention of voting for a candidate that voted for the Iraq war. I was Bernie or bust. When Hillary won the primary, Bernie told his people that we needed to vote for Hillary. While we may not agree with her on all issues, we knew that preventing a Trump presidency was absolutely necessary. I wrote my very first post here on steemit the night I decided to make it official.

https://steemit.com/politics/@chalidore/first-post-2016-presidential-endorsement

In 2016 I voted for Hillary Clinton

So here we are. Every day I hear the howling cackles of laughter from the rednecks that tortured and raped me as a child. I see them trolling social media, marching alongside Nazis and Confederates in the streets. Hate crimes are on the rise. A friend of mine was recently hospitalized for skating while black. They shouted "n---ers don't skate" while they stomped and kicked him. A white supremacist murdered two people on a commuter train, and now I have one more thing to worry about when my family chooses to use public transportation. I am preparing for the inevitable war, economic collapse, or other unknown catastrophe sure to result from this president's incompetence and greed. I lose sleep worrying about what the future holds for my children. When I do sleep, my dreams are filled with war and fear. I have to explain to my daughter that even though the president brags about grabbing girls' private areas, it is never ok for a boy to do that, and she should tell her teacher if it ever happens.
The culture war rages on, and I voluntarily place myself at the front lines. I boycott all businesses that support Republicans. I donate money to progressive causes and candidates. I spend a lot of time attempting to educate anyone that will listen, which is what I am doing right now.

If you read all of this, I am interested in your feedback. I am interested in having the type of conversations that unlock minds. I may get a little abrasive with conservatives, especially Neo-Nazi and Neo-Confederate "alt-right" conservatives, but that doesn't mean we can't have an honest conversation. My upvote is currently worth about ten cents, so if you keep it classy, I might just drop a dime on you. Resteeming this post to attract a wider conversation will also earn you some of my upvotes.
Good night, and good luck.