Saturday, October 29, 2016

CITIZEN TONY VOTED YESTERDAY

I went to the Medina County Board of Elections on Friday morning to cast my votes in the 2016 election. I have been a firm believer in early voting for years, ever since that very special Election Day when a Republican poll worker harassed me - as he had done before - and loudly proclaimed people like me shouldn’t be allowed to vote. He was elderly then and, for one reason or another, is certainly no longer able to harass voters, but the sting of those encounters is as fresh in my mind today as it was at the time.

Ohio is one of the too many states where the Republican-controlled state government redrew districts to benefit party candidates.  Our despicable Secretary of State - Jon A. Husted - has time and again used his office in sometimes successful attempts to suppress votes of those not likely to vote Republican.

The full-year workers at The Medina County Board of Elections have always been both personable and professional, regardless of their political affiliations. You get the occasional “election special” who wears his or her Republican party loyalty on their sleeve, but that’s not unexpected in a community as Republican as my home town of Medina.

Voting was a quick process because I studied the ballot, candidates and issues beforehand. I voted for two local Republicans on account of I knew them personally, I considered them good and qualified for their positions and neither one was in a position to vote on bills and laws that will hurt people. I still consider Donald Trump and pretty much all Republicans in general to be a major threat to our nation. I feel about them the way I feel about police officers. Clean up your own house, stand with decent people against the bad elements in your party or occupation, and you will have a chance to earn my respect and support.

There weren’t as many Trump signs on Medina lawns as you would have expected in Republican Medina. Some lawns only showed support for local candidates. Some lawns which had signs in previous elections did not post any this time around. It gives me hope that, for some Medina Republicans, Trump and the party have finally gone too far for them to stomach.

There were far more Hilary Clinton lawn signs that I had expected. Despite her faults - and she is not without faults - she is clearly and overwhelmingly the better choice to be our next President than  her opponents. Sorry GOP Lite, excuse me, I mean Libertarians, you are a laughable lot. Sorry, Green Party, though I respect you and have voted for Green Party candidates running for offices down the ballot. You’re still decades away from being Presidential material, but keep working toward that goal.

Mark Evanier has been keeping a tally of friends he has lost due to his anti-Trump comments. The last time I checked, that tally stood at four. As Mark is a much better blogger and nicer guy than I am, I’m sure I’ve lost many more friends than he has. Except I usually refer to them as “friends” and, more often than not, I pushed them out the door and not the other way around.

I think anyone who supports Trump and the Republican Party of 2016 has something seriously wrong with them. Maybe it’s a sickness in their brains. Maybe it’s a sickness in their souls. Maybe both of those vital human components have been corrupted by the bigotry and racism, the misogyny, the obstructionism, the delusional inability to accept proven facts, the fear-mongering and the slavish devotion to the rich and the powerful that fuels their party. I don’t like them, but I do pity them. What a tragic waste of human potential.

The other day, my son Eddie told me about an article he’d read on the election. The writer’s explanation for why people had made the mad choice to support Trump was because those people had become so frustrated with “the system” that they just wanted to blow it all up. Trump is their bomb of choice.

I understand frustration, but I know the cause of my frustration is not the government. It’s the Republican politicians and pundits who obstruct the proper business of our government and who put forth a false narrative of that government and of reality in general. As I see it, you would have to be insane to give those Republicans the power to continue their destructive ways.

I hadn’t expected to write another of these “Citizen Tony” pieces until well after the election, but the stakes are terribly high for my country. I want to encourage readers not to become so frustrated with the excesses of this election that they don’t vote. Your not voting is what Trump and his party want. 

I expect to lose a few more “friends” today. I expect I’ll receive another screed from the anonymous coward who’s so terrified of this five foot three overweight senior citizen that he fearfully hides (or thinks he hides) his identity from me. I’m okay with reactions like that. I don’t write this blog to be safe.

I write it to entertain and inform. I write it to do my small part to elevate human intelligence and morality. I write it because of my belief that I have a gift and should use that gift. And, truth be told, I write it because, yes, I do think I’m a better smarter person than my detractors. I am not immune to the siren call of my ego. I just try to manage that ego enough so that my head doesn’t  explode into a bigly mass of orange puke.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2016 Tony Isabella

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