Back to Base Camp

Today is the one-year anniversary of my taking an active interest in American politics. (For most of my life, I have been a refusenik.) I have long admired Senator Sanders, but I feared he would not be able to push his platform through as a democrat. I don't trust the party (or the Republican Party, for that matter). But, shamed for my anti-American views, I grudgingly started to follow the political blow-by-blow, starting with the "pot-luck" gathering at the White Rose (social justice bookstore) in Holyoke, where a bunch of Bernie supporters watched him kick off his campaign. I really did give it my best shot for 365 days.

Yesterday, however, I was unfriended on Facebook by a liberal friend of over 50 years for a polite, dissenting comment I made to one of her political posts. A few days previously, I pointed out on another liberal friend's timeline that the anti-Republican meme she was sharing was a hoax. She neither removed it nor replied. But someone else did reply, saying that it made no difference if it was true or not, since Trump was so awful...it "might as well be true."

So. I give up. I have not been following the Republican debacle very closely. but I have been following the Democratic primaries, caucuses and conventions ad nauseum. A great deal of evidence clearly shows pro-Hillary bias by the media, the DNC, voting officials, and others. Most of my liberal friends are so overjoyed that a woman has been nominated to run for president that they do not think any of the fraud worthy of investigation or reparations. And anyway, "We must beat Donald Trump."

I can't be a party to this any longer. Literally. The Democratic Party is dead to me. I personally am scared shitless of Hillary, who in my opinion is a war criminal; however, if I thought she had been fairly chosen, I would have sucked it up. But obviously my vote doesn't count. Hillary's win was decided by others more powerful than the voters before the primaries began. Doesn't anyone grasp that this rigging of an election is a more serious threat to democracy than fairly electing anyone, up to and including a dangerous clown?

We invade other countries for less than what we ourselves are tolerating in our own country. Where are the riots and protests from the educated class--those whose liberal educations supposedly taught them to think critically? Until we figure out how to make the election process fair, what difference does it make if we vote or whom we vote for?

So I'll make my vote count, refusenik-style, by voting for the Cat in the Hat or writing in Bernie or whatever. Meanwhile, those friends I still have left can go back to liking me for my homemade desserts and cute dog.