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Of Course I'm Disaffected; Why Aren't You?

I took one of those implicit bias tests, actually for partisan affiliation. It said I was a raging Republican. Honestly, I have doubts about its scientific accuracy or applicability. On the other hand, it's true that I fell in with Republicans shortly after starting college. A huge thing was becoming convinced about the murderous nature of abortion. I had, and still retain, a deep sense of compassion and thirst for justice, so I never was unchangeable on other things, but I said, "These are my people, because they see this issue clearly."

And I don't know how your family is, but my family on my mother's side reads Ayn Rand. Now, please spare me your vituperative judgments here. That's just how it goes. Never made it through Atlas Shrugged, or The Fountainhead, but I've read Anthem at least 15 times. Smart people find her dull and plodding, and her philosophy wanting (fair enough), but I am still mesmerized by that story. I'm an American, after all. I know that Communism and various socialisms are bad; it's in the water here.

Then I was 23, and I read Radical Son, by David Horowitz. I cried like a baby. "This is what actual Communism does: it destroys a family, and destroys this man that I think I like." Now, he says and does a lot of things I don't like, but I felt I understood him. I still think I understand him, because I read this memoir. And quite frankly, when I surveyed my landscape, politics as I saw it then, it seemed like the fault-lines were still the same as the late '60s. I joined the conservative side fully at that moment. It was still a Boomer family argument, but I was in. The picture he shows you is leftist radicals without principle, abandoning all pretense of principle, abandoning morality, and justice, in service to an ideology in the negative sense, or for power. On my scene, that's also what I saw: Mizzou (the University of Missouri-Columbia) is not a radical hotbed, and it wasn't then, but the leftists I met, I didn't like. Same with most of the College Democrats, quite honestly. They were smug, loud, and it seemed to me, impervious to reason. I wasn't nearly as reasonable or thoughtful as I thought I was, but we can't see ourselves as clearly as we think we can see others.

I loved George W. Bush, and I wasn't alone. Loved him. People don't really understand what that's like now. The Iraq war went so bad in some ways, and was ethically dubious in others, that folks forget how happily his voters supported him. I don't care how close that first election was. Gore had no chance, and we all knew it. Smug know-it-all, who felt entitled to the presidency, it seemed. And showed it, often. Then 9/11 happened. I still carry a great fondness for the president and his words then. When he is on his deathbed, as his father was a short time ago, he will absolutely deserve the nostalgia and the victory laps he will receive. Even the "Hold on a minute" pieces that follow will have to speak favorably of the basic decency which characterized the time of George W. Bush.

Kerry had no chance, either. He's also an arrogant know-it-all, but he was different: he was so afraid to tell people what he really believed that he sounded downright unprepared to be the president. Bush probably won that election when he responded to Kerry's "global test" comment with something like, "What's this stuff about a global test? I don't need to take a test, but I will defend the American people." Lame, but effective, especially against Kerry, who seemed annoyed at having to explain his views to the peons, and suffered the loss consequently.

By the time I was 28, I wrote, "The GOP idea machine has run dry, lulled into complacency by too many easy elections against unworthy and unlikable opponents." I had also grown tired of voting pro-life, it seemed, to little effect. In support of Obama, I had written that. The Democrats were always so dour; we could ignore them, and still win. Obama had aspirations, and he wanted you to have them, too. He knew, as a practical matter, that he could be against the Iraq war without it costing him or the region too much, and for all intents and purposes, he cruised to victory. I'll skip ahead by saying I grew to love Mitt Romney, and was thrilled to support him. The HHS mandate alone was reason enough to vote against Obama, and so I did.

Donald Trump? Seriously? I don't get the decency of Bush or Romney, or the intellect of Obama. This isn't a great treatise on policy substance, I grant you. But this person is dumb. This might be a worse crime in my mind than anything else. We don't even have the pretense of high-minded principle, or aspiration. We went from Bush 41, who counted Maureen Dowd of the New York Times as a friend--in spite of all the mean things she said--to this. The bipartisan things about both Bushes were the best things. Did we abandon aspiration and even basic decency, because we couldn't beat the black guy? How did basic norms of behavior become liberal things?

I can honestly say I never had a racist thought about Barack or Michelle Obama. I got tired of him; I stopped watching the State of the Union somewhere back there. Take it back, I watched his last one. I loved Nikki Haley's direct shot at Trump in her response that night. Immigrants are my people, and they always will be. That was one of Bush's "liberal" and bipartisan things, and he was right. Maybe I should have known something was up when Romney chose immigration as the issue to prove he was "conservative." Nativism, pure and simple. "Enforcement" needs to keep the basic humanity of border-jumpers always in view. If in fact you are actually concerned because there are too many Mexicans at the factory in town, you are not my people. Nobody's in favor of murderers and drug dealers, OK? Why is this even an argument? I think we should do what Nancy Pelosi proposed. No, seriously: Spend a whole bunch of money on sensors, drones, and agents. If you're illegal, pay a fine, taxes, and we'll move on. Obama actually said this exact thing 5 years ago. Now, you've got ICE agents tossing families apart when people do what we've asked them to do! Make them citizens, or leave them alone. Aside from being contrarian for the sake of argument, this is what I've always believed. And immigration is Trump's reason for running. This is it. You, sir, are definitely not my people. I want the stodgy Republicans back. I want the Bushes back. I might be a pro-life liberal, but that was the Republican Party I knew and understood. And I'm done with it, for the foreseeable future.

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