Dystopia

[Swarth Hog]

At Maniac Nebula, I was the only openly right-wing mod.  I didn't mind.  I thought I had the "better product" (our thoughts and opinions are our products) and I was okay to present my ideas to the public versus anybody else's.  For example, Democrats in recent years wanted open borders AND a robust welfare system including free health care for all.  This is just a stupid idea!  You simply can't have both unless you want to commit suicide as a country!  You can have open borders and not allow foreigners to leech off social programs, OR you can have closed borders and have socialized medicine like they have in Europe.  I take it a step further.  Why not neither?  I'm okay with immigration, but not at the illegal rate that was going on!  And the government is not efficient at many things.  Why should they run health care and other social programs?

I loved to debate left-wing members and left-wing mods.  In all fairness, all of the other mods weren't completely left-wing and either they had indifferent or centrist ideas about politics.  I made it clear that I've voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976.  I hate to give away my age here, but it's true.  In the 1980s, Americans were proud people!  It wasn't just Republicans!  Democrats liked Ronald Reagan and we won the Cold War because of him!  Then came his VP, George HW Bush.  He had been the youngest military pilot ever, and he later became head of the CIA.  He served for eight years as vice president, and a lot of people said he was the most qualified candidate to run for president!  During his acceptance speexh at the 1988 RNC, he famously said, "Read my lips.  No new taxes."  Bush went on to beat Democrat Michael Dukakis, and his first term was going well.

Until he raised taxes in 1990!

There was a revolt in the Republican Party.  Grover Norwuist was the leader of Americans for Tax Reform.  He went on national TV to denounce George HW Bush.  He asked the audience to image drinking a bottle of Coke.  At the bottom of the bottle, there is a rat's head.  You would never buy Coke again!  It would ruin the brand!  The Republican brand  is lower taxes!  Geoege HW Bush ruined the brand, and he paid for it!  You never hear about an incumbant president with a challenger in the Republican Party.  It happened with the Democrats when Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter in 1980, but not with the GOP.  After Bush raised taxes, everything changed.  Pat Buchanan ran against Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, and Texas billionaire, Ross Perot, ran as an independent!  There was an unknown Arkansas governor who got the Democrat nomination, and all he had to do was sit back and watch the GOP unravel.  Also, this unknown governor played saxophone on late night television, and he answered questions from young kids on MTV.  He was quite popular with the kids, I must admit!

I voted for George HW Bush in 1992, and I don't regret it.  Did he raise taxes?  Yes!  Did this divide the Party?  Yes!  It was still better than the alternative, though!  I was fine that Bush lost that election, but I didn't want it to happen.  It's hard for me to admit, but Bill Clinton was a successful president.  Orange County, California voted for him, and they were one of the most conservative places in the country!  Bill Clinton offered tax credits in welfare-to-work programs.  Do you see what this is about?  If you set aside his liberal social agenda, you can see that he stole Republican ideas about how to run an economy.  I voted for Bob Dole in 1996 even though the Clinton economy surpassed my expectations.  I wasn't upset when Bob Dole lost, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was a budget surplus at the end of Clinton's second term.

George W Bush was elected in 2000 and served for two terms.  By the end of his stint, the 2008 financial crisis happened and the national debt was out of control.  Barack Obama came around and I kept voting Republican.  I voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney.  I noticed something peculiar about Democrats during this period.  It wasn't a fluke with Bill Clinton.  These guys start off as bleeding-heart liberals, but in order to get re-elected, they adopt Neocon positions!  With Clinton, it was Repiblican tax policy.  With Obama, it was foreign policy.  He could've tried to end the war in Afghanistan, but he didn't do it.  American drone strikes increased in his presidency!  The NSA became stronger!  The NDAA was passed!  He liked to golf with John Boehner!  He was doing everything he could to be the next Ronald Reagan.

Let's skip to the end now.  I voted for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.  I still consider myself to be Republican, and I am still registered as a Republican. I told Maniac Nebula I would vote Republican in 2028 and 2032 if I live long enough.  I have believed in the Party all these decades, and I believe in he philosophy behind it.  I voted for George HW Bush in 1992, like I mentioned, but I understand why he lost.  You can't screw with the Republican brand!  Grover Norquist articulated this well!  If you say "read my lips", you have to follow through on your promises!  If you don't IT RUINS THE BRAND!!!!!!  Who can take you seriously ever again?

The cracks in my thoughts started a few months ago.  Trump joked with Hannity about being a dictator on Day One.  I shrugged it off.  I started to see something, though.  Donald Trump is crazy!  I believe he's clinically insane!  And hers's what's most noteworthy:

DONALD TRUMP IS NOT A REPUBLICAN!!!!!!

He is a Republican In Name Only, aka a RINO!!!!  We can't understate how much he uses projection as a defense mechanism.  Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers.  This from an accused rapist ordered to pay E Jean Carroll millions of dollars.  This, from a guy who labeled Renee Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists after they were murdered by ICE agents.  Donald Trump knows deep down that he is not a Republican, so he projects the "RINO" name onto others!  A Republican, by definition, believes in republics!  What separates us from the British monarchy we broke away from?  We have a House of Representatives in Congress!  We have a Senate!  These representatives are tasked with declaring wars, if necessary!  They appropriate budgets, and they vote for tariffs if need be!  I am still a Republican, but I'm finding out the guy in the White House is not!  My left-wing friends warned me long ago that this point would come.  With Chris Christie, it happened after Donald Trump refused to admit he lost the 2020 election.  With Marjorie Taylor Greene, it happened in 2025 after Trump called her a traitor when she signed the Epstein discharge petition.  We have become political orphans, and the remaining people in Trump's orbit still call themselves Republican, and it's dusgusting to me.  They don't believe in republics!  This is integral to being a Republican!

A couple of months ago, I joked with Maniac Nebula that I promised I wouldn't vote Republican if Trump ran again in 2028.  That's when I knew i had a serious crack in my belief system.  I was joking with my left-wing pals, bur it was too real.  I don't believe Trump respects the Constitution, so how could he respect a Constitutional republic?  The evidence kept growing.  He defied the Supreme Court with six conservative justices, three of them he personally nominated!  He didn't go to Congress for tariffs or the two recent wars.

I'm not going to apologize to my left-wing friends.  I still believe in the Republican system over everything else.  On paper, it works best.  Bob Dole, when he ran against Bill Clinton, was advised to stress lower taxes during his 1996 predidential run.  He camaigned on an across-the-board 15% tax cut for everyone.  In the waning days of his campaign, he was way behind in the polls so he changed tactics.  He was advised to attack Bill Clinton's character.  This has been a running theme for Republicans, and it's a sign they're in trouble.  During Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial, Newt Gingrich lauded Bill Clinton for his fling with Monica Lewensky.  He tried to come across on the moral high ground, but we later found out in 2007 that Gingrich was having his own extramarital affair for six years as he chastized Clinton.  These character assaults don't go anywhere when you begin to believe that most politicians in DC are corrupt.  But lower taxes?  That's real, and it's measurable!  You know when there's more money in your wallet!

I never paid much attention to the character issue until Donald Trump came along, actually.  I paid attention to the economics more than anything else.  I voted for George HW Bush and I didn't regret it.  We live life, and we learn from mistakes.  Grover Norquist made a case agsinst Bush, and I understand it.  I didn't wind up in that camp, but many Republicans did.  I wanted to send a message to my left-wing friends at Maniac Nebula.  I joked that I wouldn't vote for Trump if he ran for a third term.  I still supported him, though.  I didn't know the economy would turn out so bad, but that's not the reason for my change of heart.  Trump couldn't work with Congress for tariff or war legislation and it bugged me, but it's still not the main reason.  I've had many discussions with leftists say our nation is becoming a dystopia.  This is the main reason.  I shrugged off the suggestion in the past, but it's here!  Our nation is not becoming a dystopia!  It is a dystopia!  All of a sudden, the tax rates don't matter like they used to.  Does it matter that we pay 15% less if nukes are coming down from the sky?  All of a sudden, character matters more than it ever did.  Did we not learn from the "read my lips" backlash of George HW Bush?  If you say you're not going to engage in foreign regime-change wars, you ought to mean it!  If you don't, you're moral garbage!

Tucker Calson is actually claiming things are even worse!  He's been vocal against massive aid to Israel, and he's been vocal against the war in Iran.  Megyn Kelly has also been critical.  Trump decided to attack them by saying they're not MAGA!  He had previously attacked Marjorie Taylor Greene, and he's trying to contort America First to mean supporting Israel over Congress, then he says he's MIGA!!!!  What's that even mean?  Is it Israel or Iran that he's taling about, because it sure isn't America!  Trump said he would drain the Swamp, and he bashed the Deep State for ten years.  Now?  Tucker Carlson says he's being targeted by the CIA!  This is not what anyone signed up for.

Sheeple Gateway has a few good threads I like to post to.  I like videoAnything, and I like Random News.  Demented has a few threads in the Special Abode, and I appreciate them.  I've butted heads with Demented over politics over the past few months, but I respect him.  I think he saw a certain rottenness in Donald Trump way before I did.  I want to send this message, though.  I will NOT join the political left just because I am disillusioned by what remains of the Republican Party.  Don't start dancing on my grave just yet!  I am a political orphan though.  I don't know where things are heading.  I can't post this to the other threads.  I recognize the dystopia we're in.  I know the main forum is supposed to be light-hearted.  With bombs flying all over the place in the Middle East, I've got to vent, and I've got to keep it real.  That's why I'm starting this thread.  You're welcome to engage me in discussion.  Demented had a "Sheeple, Be Warned" thread, and I feel the same need to make a disclaimer.  I've been on edge, and I don't like the ways things turned out.  If I'm a little grumpy, I can't really control it lately.  In some La La Land, things will turn out fine.  Here?  On planet Earth?  I'm not do hopeful ...

— Swarth Hog