Registering to Vote

Yesterday, I went on the State of Utah website and downloaded the form to register my wife and I to vote in Utah. For the last fifty years, I have lived in Orange County, CA, a Republican stronghold in the middle of a reliably Democratic state. During my time there I felt my vote in the presidential and national elections were wasted, since it was known beforehand which way the state would go, Ironically, now I find myself in a reliably Republican state. Oh, to be a swing voter in a swing state. Still, I like to vote so we filled out the forms and mailed them. On line 6 of the voter registration form was the question of questions: Party Affiliation? Now, I have been a registered Democrat ever since I voted for George McGovern in 1972. However, my politics have changed a lot since then and as often as not in the past 20 years, I have voted for the Republican candidate for president. You see, I am a now a moderate, liberal on social issues and conservative on financial and national defense.

Today, once again, I checked Democratic in line 6, assigning myself to the minority in Utah. But it was an easy decision. If you’ve been around when I’ve occasionally digressed into politics here on Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog, you probably think I registered as a Democrat because I do not like Donald Trump. But that is not why I didn’t register Republican. Donald Trump is the sitting Republican president and it would be expected that the party would nominate him. I didn’t register as a Republican because for the time being, at least, the party that represented my conservative views, the party of Lincoln and Reagan, is gone, All I need to know is that in place of a platform, the Republicans asserted that:
RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda;
RESOVLVED, [sic] That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration…

And with that, the Republican Party ceased to be a political party and became a cult of personality. In what form of government does the party say of its leader, Whatever he does is OK? It starts with D but it isn’t a Democracy. It remains to be seen whether a genuinely conservative party will re-emerge. There are certainly genuine Republicans out there. Some of them spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Some are affiliated with the anti-Trump Right Side Super PAC or Lincoln Project, which is airing anti-Trump commercials like this one.

But until the Republican National Committee starts acting like a political party again, I won’t be voting for Republicans. Wait, I would vote for Mitt Romney, one of the few current legislators to stand up to Trump by voting in favor of impeachment.

Aside: As I was writing this, I found an article in The Atlantic by David Frum titled The Platform the GOP Is Too Scared to Publish. Frum lays out what he contends is the true Republican platform and that the so-called party won’t publish it because it would be not be supported by the majority of the American public. It’s an interesting read which you can find, here.

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Tags: 2020 election, opinion, perspectives, politics

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