WHAT? ARE YOU NUTS?! A Lefty Makes Election Day Visit To Local Trump Headquarters
After voting Tuesday, I walked down to say hello and introduce myself to my Republican neighbors.
Cartoon and photos by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (11/6/24)
I was the 747th voter in my town in northeast Wisconsin yesterday. I voted Green for president and Libertarian in the senate race. Dem Sen. Tammy Baldwin squeaked through to reelection by .9%. The Libertarian scored 1.3%. The defining issue for me was the US/Israel genocide in Gaza. Given a nation is defined by genocide and is the ultimate moral test for a nation, nothing else mattered to me. If there had been no third party option I would not have voted.
Things were hushed in the City Hall polling place. There was a tense feeling and practically no conversation. People avoided eye contact. The polling volunteers were professional and wonderful.
I came out of City Hall shortly after 1 p.m. and walked to a nearby art store to pick up a marker. I came out of the store and looked across the street at the local county Republican headquarters. I had an idea but decided to walk down to the corner to think about it a moment.
I crossed the street, then walked up the sidewalk and through the door. I don’t think I’ve been in a Republican Party headquarters since I was a kid and my dad had me stuffing envelopes for the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign.
There were five people gathered at a table and sofa. I introduced myself, noting I was a former Democratic Party county co-chair, now an independent and had just voted for Jill Stein and wondered if I could talk with them for a few minutes.
“My politics are pretty far left,” I said. “But if we can’t all learn to talk with each other, we’ll all be destroyed.”
After some initial shock, the woman behind the table smiled and said sure, inviting me to take a seat. I said I was interested in talking about what we most likely agreed upon; basic things like a good world for our kids and grand kids and reliable public resources and how we could have a livable community. Wouldn’t it be great, I asked — and maybe possible — after this divisive campaign season for a small group of local Republicans and Democrats to put aside the heated divisions for a few minutes and sit down to talk about what we agree upon.
Perhaps, I said, that could be the beginning of something new.
They all nodded in agreement. We talked for about 40 minutes. Occasionally we all —myself included — dipped into some typical partisan stuff, but I would bring it back to areas of real and potential agreement. The woman behind the table also began doing the same. On a day of such partisan drama and BS, for a few minutes we had a decent conversation and found we were in agreement on many things.
They agreed that both parties exploit and manipulate differences and that meant a lot unnecessary friction and a lot of fixable things go unfixed. There was strong agreement about the concern of wealth disparity. All agreed something was seriously wrong when three men own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country.
I intentionally kept the conversation short. As I was beginning to say good-bye, the guy on the nearby sofa wearing a MAGA sun visor with a funny shock of fake Trump like hair got up to give me the card of the woman who chairs the local Republican Party, encouraging me to call her in a few days after the election. Turns out she was one of the wonderful poll workers I had encountered an hour before.
What could have been and needs to be
Several months ago I got a promotional mailing from The Nation magazine that included a bookmark…
FDR, was the guy who served four terms as president, despite routinely being outspent 10-to-1. Yet, you hardly ever hear today’s corporate Democrats even mention, much less quote FDR or cite his record as a platform for saving the nation and easing suffering now.
Imagine — just imagine — if the Democrats had genuinely run on such a message and had a track record to back it up. If they had, it’s safe to say that most/all of the Republicans I visited with yesterday would support such a platform and probably would even vote for such a candidate.
Can the Democrats learn a thing from 2024?
Nah, they’ll blame their flaming failure on Jill Stein and, just like the Republicans, continue licking up millions from billionaires.
But in the meantime, it’s time for neighbors to talk.
As usual, Cailtlin Johnstone does an excellent job of summing up where we are at:
The Evil Warmongering Zionist Won (No Not That One, The Other One)
Turns out campaigning on the promise of continuing a genocide while courting endorsements from war criminals like Dick Cheney is not a great way to get progressives to vote for you. …
TYT: Cenk Gives The Democrats A Reality Check
Cenk EXPLODES on Weak Democrats
Another Election Come & Gone…
“I didn’t vote, walked out last minute, I felt that my voice does not have any value.”
— Online chat comment (11/5/24)
Bravo!!! Bravo!!! By walking into the GOP office and creating the circumstances so that a dialogue could happen is exactly what is needed if we are going to move towards some common ground to remove the "us/them" environment which needs changing. By the way, I worked for Goldwater as a volunteer back in 1964 but became a conscientious objector/war resister a few years later.
That was an epic Cenk rant. But saying what Kamala should have said and done just to win misses the point. If she won, we would have had the same old shit.