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THE DISGRUNTLED DEMOCRAT

Musings From a Former Democrat

(March 2008, when my political maturing began. So much has changed, am now a staunch MAGA Republican.)

The first presidential candidate I voted for was Jimmy Carter. I had just turned 18, was in college at Miami of Ohio, and was full of promise for myself and the world. Even though my parents were staunch Republicans, I knew I was going to be a Democrat. And I was gung-ho for Carter. He was a Christian, like me. He believed in protecting the environment, like me. He was for equal rights for all, like me. He was a populist, like me. He was a Willie Nelson fan, like me. He liked peanuts, like me. He fought for the poor, like I would of if I had had the time and/or inclination.

Yes, it was a no-brainer. After all, Republicans believed in welfare for the rich. They thought the environment was there for their taking and exploitation. They didn’t care about equal rights; instead, they longed for the “good old days.” They believed in feeding the satiated and starving the hungry. They didn’t believe in government, for goodness sakes, so how on earth could they possibly run one? (Looking back that hardly describes Ford, but hey, what did I know?) I voted down-the-line for Democrats through the second Bush except at the top. As dumb as I was back then, even I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Gore or Kerry. The high point was Bill Clinton. I remember picking up my Los Angeles Times one morning in 1992 before the California primary and reading that Clinton was going to be speaking in one hour at an office complex about two miles from my apartment. I hopped on my Torpedo bike and raced to the office courtyard. I couldn’t believe it. The place was packed, and it was a carnival atmosphere. Tattooed freaks in sandals were selling T-shirts. Tank-topped women with hairy armpits were passing out PETA buttons. And all sorts of protesters were wagging signs with whacked-out sayings. This was my Woodstock!

Clinton was about an hour late—from the time posted in the Times, but when he took the stage, the place fell silent. No notes, he eloquently spoke off-the-cuff for about an hour. He talked of the future—the next century—he talked about how “no person can be wasted,” he talked solutions. A couple of weeks later, I heard he was coming to the Pacific Amphitheater, which seats about 20,000. My friends and I decided to go and when we merged onto the 55, traffic was stopped. Traffic was backed up about five miles from the Amphitheater exit. When we finally found parking and got out, the line to get into the place snaked about two miles across the parking lot. It was already time for the show to start. An official came to us and said the venue was completely filled, no one else was getting. Getting back on the 55 going north, traffic was still backed up in the other direction trying to get into the Amphitheater. The next day the Times reported that the event had a capacity crowd. What they didn’t report was that another 100,000 were trying to get in. This was heavily Republican Orange County!

I knew right then that Clinton was going to be our next president. I absolutely loved the Clintons. Both of them. They were so smart, and so well-versed in the state of our world. So determined to find solutions. I adored her. I always felt she was so misunderstood and mischaracterized. I got her humor. “I s’pose I could’ve stayed home and baked cookies,” was classic. “I’m not some Tammy Wynette standing by her man,” will go down in history. But the Republicans crucified them. I was tending bar in nothing-but-republican Orange County, CA at the time, and the day Clinton was inaugurated, I had a bar filled with frustrated salesmen exclaiming, “We’re going to impeach him!” This was during the time that Rush Limbaugh actually had a TV show, and he started his “America Held Hostage” (by the Clintons) countdown.

Yes, those were heady times. Then the incompetent second Bush further cemented, I believed, my democratic loyalty. But then something happened in the 2008 primary. I was living in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and working as a bartender. Yellow Springs, for those that don’t know, is something like a Midwest version of the Haight-Ashbury district. Further, it’s a bastion of lesbianism. Which would make it a natural for Hillary, wouldn’t it? Well, not so fast. The whole town fell in love, and I mean love, with Obama. While she was destroying him in the primary debates, townspeople like lemmings where espousing, “I believe in Hope and Change!” Huh? Worse, people were gushing about their 10 or 12-year-old kid getting interested in politics because of Obama and “isn’t that wonderful?” Really. Now these esteem-building parents were taking cues from their bratty kids. Of course, it might have had something to do with the fact that I so strongly felt that Hillary was destined to be the first woman president, that I did not get, in any way, shape or form, this whole Obama thing. Sure, he gave a great speech at Kerry’s convention, but now when he talked, to me, he looked like a Disney robotron—probably due to his mechanical head turns from teleprompter to teleprompter. I remember trying to listen to a speech at the beginning of the campaign, and he said, “This campaign isn’t going to be about slogans.” Well, isn’t that a slogan? Maybe it was the bartender in me, but something about Obama couldn’t be trusted, something wasn’t right, he never really talked about anything, never talked about solutions, or details. Just hope and change. Yeah, like somebody could be against hope.

Then, unlike the press, as Obama kept conning more voters, I began delving into his background. I even started watching my old nemesis Fox and listening to Hannity. No, I never became “Hannitized,” but, truth be told, these wing nuts were the only ones doing any vetting of Obama. If someone was given a hard copy of Obama’s resume that did not state his race (half-white), Obama would’ve been laughed out of town. Bill Clinton was dead-on when he said about Obama, “This guy would’ve been serving us coffee two years ago.” And it had nothing, I mean nothing, to do with race. Except to Axelrod, who pounced on the remark. Of course, Bill was talking about Obama’s flimsy experience. And yes, Bill embellished. Obama wasn’t pouring coffee two years earlier. Everyone knows that Obama was voting “present” in the Illinois legislature two years earlier.

Axelrod got some expected help with the mainstream press, who were suffering with a terminal case of “Clinton fatigue.” One big bone of contention was how Obama was skillfully painted as the candidate that voted against the Iraq war. Hell, Obama didn’t have a vote, he wasn’t in the Senate at the time of the vote. Meanwhile, Hillary gave an impassioned plea to an empty Senate floor—I saw it on CSPAN—about why she was voting for the resolution, which, as I understood it, was not a vote for war. She said that in the precarious times following 9/11 that the president needed the powers in the resolution but was quick to plead that Bush act wisely. But again, no doubt due to her own time in the White House, she believed the president needed the ability to respond quickly to world situations. As Hillary went down, I started completely reevaluating my politics. First, I felt in my heart that Obama’s inexperience, foolhardiness, love of Marxist socialism, and brittle narcissism was going to destroy the Democratic Party along with a lot of good Democrats, which, for my money, has come to fruition. But also, I began to realize that I was something of a Libertarian. I believed in a safety net for all citizens, believed in national defense—emphasis on defense, believed in some regulation for the safety of citizens; but beyond that I believed government should stay out of people’s lives. I was a Democrat strictly because of social issues, the environment, and because I didn’t want corporate welfare.

Now this was easy to justify when times were good and when Democrats were headed by a brilliant politician like Clinton. But the second Bush was lousy and Obama was far worse. Our country was at a critical mass. It’s not enough to elect a candidate that you believe is in line with your issues if that candidate is incapable of putting those issues in place. Or, because of lack of experience, the candidate, even if the intentions are good, makes them worse. (Healthcare.) And no, “Well, it’s at least a start,” is not an adequate response. When you start down the wrong road, the only solution is to stop and turn back. Even if you build new roads to try to right the ship, you’re still heading in the wrong direction. And you’ve just added more and more of a discombobulated mess. This is bureaucracy. This, I’ve come to believe, is the only thing the Democrats know how to do. Create a mess—it’s a start—then add to the mess to try to fix the mess.

Which brings me back to Carter. I guess I used to think that Republicans were a bunch of hypocrites. I now think that both Republicans and Democrats are mostly hypocrites. Anyway, isn’t it ironic that Evangelicals were instrumental in getting Carter elected, but when he actually tried to practice what he preached, the Born-Agains quickly deserted him for Reagan? To this day, Reagan is an enigma for me. I loved the man, hated most of the politics. He was strong on Communism and the cold war but seemed completely ignorant on growing scourge of terrorism. He drove our nation into more debt than ever before. He and Nancy were quintessential Hollywood, with a bevy of high-profile friends from all races and sexual orientations, but in Washington he operated like the social police. Weirder still, the Fundamentalists ate it up. So I spent a lot of years, I now believe, voting against Republicans and not necessarily voting for, except Clinton, Democrats.

This website, Disgruntleddemocrat.com is for people that are fed up with partisan politics and are now searching for the best candidate. This is a website for people searching for answers that are ready to open their minds, drop single-issue politics, and truly give hope to our country.

MORE ABOUT ME

I started working in restaurants at age 16, bussing tables. As a shy kid, I was fascinated by the drama and all the buzz of activity. Plus, I love food. Anyway, as the saying goes, restaurants got in my blood. Much to my surprise, and due to AP classes, I was able to graduate from high school in December of my senior year. I went off to Crested Butte, Colorado with one of my sister's friends, got a job as a dishwasher at Crested Butte Lodge, and skied all day. I returned to Ohio when winter was over, and in the Fall, I began my freshman year at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Back then, Miami was fondly known as the "Yale of the Midwest.

Yale or not, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I went to career counselors, took a couple of vocational tests, but the results always came back inconclusive. The counselor always said, "You didn't score high enough in any one area. We don't know what you want to do. There's no career for you. We don't know what you want to be."

So, I dropped out of college, moved to California, and kept working in restaurants. In fact, I've worked every job in a restaurant, including management. And I've worked for caterers and country clubs. Then, in my thirties, while tending bar at a Swedish Bistro, I decided to take the plunge and go back to school. I wanted to get an English Degree. I wanted to learn to write better. (Is that correct grammar?) I wanted to write a novel, or a screenplay, or a letter to my mother.

When I moved back to my home state of Ohio, I began pursuing freelance writing. I walked into the Dayton Daily News building, bumped into the entertainment editor, and was given the opportunity to review a music CD. For pay, I got to keep the CD. A couple of reviews later, I was noticed by the "Real Estate Plus" editor, and I started receiving regular, decent-paying assignments to write about homes. I toured the homes and interviewed the homeowner and realtor, relentlessly pursuing the "money quote." To improve my articles, I studied the AP Stylebook, paid close attention to my editor's changes, and I researched the correct terminology of architectural styles to add an air of authority to my articles.By word-of-mouth recommendations, I was soon receiving all sorts of assignments. I wrote profiles of the performers for the Dayton Air Show programs, I wrote the text for the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Guide, wrote for The Business Advisor, wrote travel stories for the DDN, wrote about a 3,000-word article about historic Camp Kern, covered city councils and submitted articles to the DDN's editorial department; you name it.

All in all, I've written on a variety of topics, for a diverse number of publications, in a wide range of styles. To successfully get the story, I’ve done phone interviews, in-person interviews, searched the Internet, and visited local libraries. And though I began to get regular paychecks from writing, as most freelancers know, it wasn't enough. Needing money kept half of my brain and most of my body in the food business. I've been the bar manager at three country clubs. I've been a kitchen manager at the region's first true "farm-to-table," or "farm-to-fork," or "farm-to-frying pan" restaurant. I've been a short-term general manager at Independents and Chains. Short term because I couldn't stand all those frustrating hours with no real power to make correct decisions.

Today, I’m still tending bar, and when I’m not writing articles to get a meager paycheck, I’m writing about life experiences. Sure, I embellish, maybe twist a few facts, but it’s all in the pursuit of a good story.