Member-only story
I think of myself as conservative. Indeed, “selectively reactionary” might be even closer. I don’t want to go back to “the time when….” I just want to restore certain aspects of how things once were. I want to go back to the President and the Speaker of the opposite party sharing a drink and working for America. I want to go back to a filibuster that was real but very inconvenient. I want to go back to “compromise” being something legislators can be proud of. I also want things to change. I want Congressional districts to be larger, each with multiple representatives chosen by ranked vote. I want healthcare not to be paid for by employers. I want to get rid of the payroll tax.
But I’m not here to defend any of these positions. I just want people who are too busy to seek out my other articles and comments to get some idea of where I’m coming from.
Until 2015, I was a registered Republican. Mentally, I left the party in 2016 during the primary debate where the moderator asked the candidates whether they would support the GOP nominee whoever that might be. The only candidate on stage with the courage — temerity? — not to throw a hand skyward was the one who got the nomination. Some people saw Trump being an iconoclast, which he is. But I saw all the other weasels saying, in effect, that they would support Trump if he won the nomination. I won’t belong to that…