I don’t believe a lot of what I believed when I was young. Like most of us, life experience disabused us of lots of fantasies: the permanence of summer loves and summer memories, the absolute truth of the astrological predictions, astrologers in general, and politicians.
Okay, big surprise. I grew up as a Republican, and all my family were Republicans. It wasn’t hard to be a Republican in New York City when I was growing up. The city was still overthrowing the corruption of Tammany Hall Democrats, infamous for corruption as represented by the infamous Boss Tweed of earlier days. Republicans represented “Clean Government”, and I happily circulated flyers and ran errands for the campaign of John Lindsay.
It took a bit of labor and observation of national politics in the mid to late sixties to turn me into a Democrat as I matured. Still, arguably, both the Republican and Democratic parties have changed vastly in the intervening years. I could not, in good conscience, be a Republican now. But there are still a few core old-style Republican beliefs that stick.
An observation? Political parties do change and are not static. Stasis is not good when the social, economic, and political world is continually changing. Today I read of the growing disagreements between the left wing of the Democratic Party and the centrists and Democratic conservatives. I can also read about growing cracks in the Republicans. Where will it all lead? Let’s see.
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You’re right: life does change our thinking a lot from the idealism of youth to the realities a senior sees. I’m thankful that here in Canada right now we have two good choices for PM. I believe both sensible and capable. Forgive my skepticism, but looking South, I can’t really see the same in the US. It would be great if you had two choices and could put confidence in either. Maybe they’ll emerge yet?
I share your skepticism. And even in the best possible world I wonder how a single administration could repair all the damge that has been done.
George Wallace was a Democrat. There’s been a flip-flop. I’m undeclared. I think I can stick with that consistently. I won’t declare that, though.
Ouch…I had forgotten that, but it goes to show how radically things caan shift.
Seriously…
This is exactly why I remain Undeclared- I think both parties are rotten from the inside out- and would love to see the implementation of ranked choice voting in presidential elections- alongside abolishing the electoral college.
I worked in a city with ranked-choice voting. Vote counting was an exacting task. It definitely keeps the politicians on their toes.
We have ranked choice on everything but presidential elections. It offers a lot more flexibility as even hardline party voters have the opportunity to vote for anyone they want