Straight Ticket

Eleven days from now, slightly more than one in three Americans who are eligible to vote will either have already voted (in those states allowing early balloting) or will be doing so. Even with turnout models showing historically strong Republican enthusiasm expected to boost participation rates in this cycle, a lot of Democrats in national, state and local races will be returned to offices that some of them have held since Eisenhower was President. Upon returning, they will resume their standard practice of dismantling capitalism, dividing America by class, race and generation, wasting trillions of borrowed money on useless not-so-shovel-ready projects and invading every aspect of your lives.

Not all Democrats subscribe to the progressive, utopian ideal embraced by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  Some of them, like a good friend of mine in the Alabama legislature, are actually quite conservative on both fiscal and social issues.  In fact, this fellow would be forced to run as a Republican in places like New England or the West Coast.  The only reason he’s not a Republican here is because of family and traditional ties to the Democrats.  He’s a genuinely nice fellow with a great family.  But…

This year, I’m voting for his opponent. 

As former US Senator Zell Miller famously quipped, The (national) Democrat party abandoned its principles long before he abandoned them.  Ronald Reagan, once a Democrat himself said, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party.  They left me.” The Democrats don’t stand for the same ideals that they did in the post war era of Harry S. Truman to  John F. Kennedy.  Indeed, it was Kennedy who sought, campaigned for and signed into law a massive tax cut.  Kennedy stared down the threat of nuclear war with the USSR over missiles in Cuba.  Does the Democrat Party sound anything remotely like that, today?

As it is now, The Democrats have a far left-wing party that is completely out of touch with the center-right majority in America today, and it is actually the Republican Party that now embraces the conservative Democratic ideals that allowed the party to rule both houses of Congress for a generation.  Until the good and decent Democrats—like my old friend—have no choice but to take back their party and restore the American ideals it once held, they can’t be allowed to return to office.

The Democrat Party needs to clean house.  It needs to rid itself of elitist, progressive left-wing ideologues who think you’re about to vote against them out of fear and frustration. It’s a ruling class arrogance that convinces them that you aren’t smart enough, elite enough or nuanced enough to know what’s really good for you.  You need to leave important things like Health Care, Climate Change and Amnesty up to them, you peasant. In fact, the only reason why they still tolerate peasants at the polls is because of that pesky Second Amendment thing.

Again, I’m voting Republican in eleven days.  It will be only the second time since I cast my first ballot in 1980 (the first straight ticket was 1994) that not a single Democrat gets my vote, despite the fact that many of them are just like my old friend.  They’re good, they’re honest and they mean well, but until they clean up their party and get rid of the left-wing idealogues, I’m going STRAIGHT TICKET, and I urge you to do the same.

Despite our efforts, a lot of Democrats will still be reelected, and they’ll try to go back to their standard practices of destruction.  But if enough of them are kicked out and chastised, maybe they’ll start making a difference from within.