I know, I know. It ain't over till it's over. I get it. But whether Trump wins or loses, I'm going to go in a different direction, and spell out my beefs with the GOP before and during the Trump Presidency and his two presidential campaigns.
1) The GOP Senate is a bunch of weak sauce, useless, establishment good ol' boys. During SpyGate, Mueller, the impeachment, and now into the Trump re-election campaign, other than approving judges, they've been nothing more than a little hot air that's far too weak to call a warm breeze. How many times did we see a strong letter but no follow through? Lindsay Graham's been getting to the bottom of all this corruption for years and hasn't gotten to the bottom of jack shit. During SpyGate and later during the impeachment, I wrote several letters to my senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. It was a total waste of my time and effort. Rubio did eventually respond to me, but with cookie cutter form letter responses that made it clear to me nobody who mattered had read or even taken my concerns seriously. Again, judges aside, the Senate has been a huge disappointment and has done very little to help Trump make America great.
2) Over the years Democrats have initiated a number of changes to increase or gain an advantage at the polls: one example was the 1993 "Motor Voter" law, which required states to offer voter registration when citizens apply for a driver's license. In recent years there has been a shift toward both early voting, and this year especially, mail-in voting. And famously in California in 2018, was legislation allowing "ballot harvesting" in California. Whether it was Motor Voter, early, mail-in, or harvesting ballots, there is one common element. Republicans spent all their time and effort resisting and fighting against such initiatives, when they ought/could have been leveraging them to their own advantage. Democrats went door to door in California and collected enough ballots after Election Day to flip several seats in the House of Representatives? How many ballots did the GOP harvest? None. They stood on the sidelines complaining about it, rather than getting their own asses out to collect as many of their own as they could.
Motor Voter? Instead of fighting it, why didn't the GOP push to expand it: you can check a box on your W-4 when you get a new job to be registered as a voter. Or when you pay your property tax, get a concealed carry permit, file a change of address at the post office, etc. Play the same damned game and play to win.
This year, at least early on, the GOP resisted mail-in voting, ostensibly due to fears of voter fraud. Sort of late in the game, at least here in Florida, they seem to have realized they were getting terribly behind the voting curve and changed to encourage us to get and use an absentee ballot, but their earlier resonant message that had traction and overrode the new advice, was to vote in person on election day. Democrats cultivated many votes by otherwise less than likely voters by making voting easier for them. I realize that there was, and still is, great concern of ballot tampering and fraud and that's why the GOP at first resisted mail in. A more effective strategy would have been to fully embrace mail in voting and to take decisive actions to add safeguards where possible AND to exponentially increase the number of GOP votes mailed in through a grassroots campaign to get mail in ballots into GOP and independents who lean to the GOP's hands sent back in to be counted. I am not advocating, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", I am advocating, "beat them at their own game." I haven't seen that from the GOP, who seem to be more than satisfied to stand on the sidelines pointing at and complaining about what Democrats are doing.
3) The GOP, prior to Trump, talked about budget deficits and smaller government during election and re-election campaigns, but rarely executed plans and programs to follow through on those things once in office. All talk and no action is the way I see it.
4) The GOP has done a shitty job of making outreach to black and other minority communities. Trump is the first one I can remember in my lifetime who sincerely reached out and said, "I want to be the guy who changes black lives for the better." And he, unlike most of the GOP, made significant efforts to reach out to African-American leaders and the African-American community. The things he tried to accomplish with and for the black community were despite being unfairly and wrongly and incessantly portrayed as a racist, incredible.
5) This paragraph is for "all the other stuff": GOP = military industrial complex and endless wars. I'm for a strong military, but I object to endless wars. Free trade = the total sellout of American working class people of ALL races. These and any number of other GOP norms, Donald Trump tried to change the GOP's alignment. Most of the GOP in the Senate, House, and throughout the Executive bureaucracy resisted and thwarted Trump at every turn.
Day after day after day during the Trump presidency, the rest of the GOP proved to me that I may be a Republican, but I am NOT their kind of Republican. I'm a Trumplican, a new kind of Republican who, like Trump, sees the failings and shortcomings of the GOP before, during, and after the Trump presidency and who WILL NOT support a return to GOP ways of the last 30 years. Reaganism, with President Reagan's famous working relationship with Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil? Yes, although in today's environment, Nancy Pelosi is surely no Tip O'Neil and surely demonstrates that she and they, the Democrats, need a critically introspective look and to change just as I advocate here that the Republicans do, too. And I do not see myself ever abandoning "Trumpism", either. Just as I still feel a connection to certain aspects of Reaganism, so too do I see myself clinging to aspects you may or may not like about Trumpism: rejection of political correctness, willingness to take the heat to do the things we're saying we'll do, unlike traditional politician's all talk and no action. And most of all, Trumpism to me means a love of the United States of America and of ALL Americans, putting America and America first in all things.
One final note: I'm here complaining about the GOP. I think there is much the GOP, elected and bureaucrat alike, could have done to make the Trump presidency even more successful. But let there be no doubt, I am NOT a Democrat. I can't think of a single issue which their views are more in line with my own than the GOP's are. I only add this note because if you read this and it makes you think, "Gee, Matty, there's a place for you in the Democratic Party," you're out of your fucking mind.
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