I was up late last night watching election returns. I was reluctant to do so after 2024. I mean I had already suffered through watching Trump win in 2016. In 2024 I thought for sure Kamala Harris was going to win, but then Trump won everything including both houses.
So despite all the positive polling going into last night, I was excited, but really nervous. But then early returns came in and did not disappoint, nor did the rest of the night. Texas went with democrat leadership all the way down the whole ballot.
After all the years of turmoil and anti-wokeness and weird culture wars finally we are going to have some people in office with at least the bare minimum of intelligence and decency.
Mind you, I’m hardly a died in the wool democrat. To be honest, I was raised conservative growing up in Indiana. In my first election I voted for George H.W. Bush vs. Clinton. Clinton one, but my vote still counted. I think I voted for a libertarian candidate in 1996 because I thought Bob Dole had the enthusiasm of a wet sock.
I didn’t vote in 2008. At that time, I was a conservative Christian, and going to bible college. Obama made me nervous. and I didn’t care for McCain or Palin. I know not voting isn’t great, but at the time i felt it was a sort of protest. Though not necessarily a good one.
In 2012 I voted for Romney because while I liked Obama by that point, we were still struggling a lot from the awful recession from a few years before. I hoped a republican president may loosen the economy up a bit. Then 2016 and Trump rolls around. I never liked Trump. Well, I liked him as an entertainer. I always thought he was funny on the Apprentice and thought his early rallies were funny in an ugly way. I didn’t take him seriously.
Then he got really ugly and bad. I saw people I though I’d known for years using racial and homophobic slurs. Even when I was a Christian, I was never really anti-gay. I had friends who were gay and they weren’t the monsters the church tried to paint them as. I was indifferent to pretty much any one’s sexuality or gender preference. Even at my most conservative I felt those things were private matters and between them and God. And there were more important things an individual should worry about other than someone’s gender or who they are having sex with.
Of course those things are part of why I left the church. I got called a false prophet by a few people for teaching about love and acceptance instead of hate for sinners. I just never was a hateful person even at my most religious.
So in 2016 I voted for the first time a pretty much all democrat ticket and have ever since. What is funny, is I barely changed my opinion on any issues. Just the Republicans had gotten so batshit crazy, I just ended up on the left somehow.
I believe every one matters and every life matters, no matter how old or how sick. Heatlhcare is a human right, not something only rich people should have. The same with education. I WANT our children to be educated and intelligent and be able to learn and tell what is bullshit or not. My kids aren’t even in school any more and I still vote in favor of ballot measures funding local schools because children are our future and when I’m old in the nursing home, I want them to know what they are doing.
Politics is really ugly. I’m not an overtly political person. On social media I don’t usually post about issues a lot because I’m not sure how much good arguing on Facebook does anything. But lately it’s become harder to keep things quiet, and I get so sick of these “Both sides are just as bad!” comments. One side literally wants to kill off sick and old people. As my mother in law has been sick and taking care of her more, plus using a cane myself, I’ve learned just how callus our country is toward the sick and disabled.
I’m not sure if it was always this way, or if its gotten worse, but it needs to change. These people say they are pro life, and then say a person with cancer is just draining resources and they don’t want their taxes to go toward sick people’s treatment.
I tell you I am very happy with the idea of my taxes going to help sick people, people who need fed, especially children. And educating our public. It’s all gotten rather ghoulish to be honest. Just make a post that you think lunch in school should be free and the weirdos frothing at the mouth against feeding children come out of the woodwork.
So, for the first time since I’ve lived in Texas we are now a blue state. We have a Latina woman as governor and a Presbyterian school teacher and seminary student as a Senator and I couldn’t be happier. James Talarico talks about the kind of Christianity that I used to believe in when I was in the church. It sounds like my problem was I was in the wrong denomination.
I was Baptist, and then Pentecostal. Both of which are very conservative. I left the church for good when they started preaching politics during church service, telling people how to vote and calling Obama the anti-christ. I wasn’t sure on Obama, but I didn’t like the use of the pulpit for political manipulation.
I’ve since been deconstructing all my childhood and years of spiritual abuse, but that was a whole different blog post. What last night’s wins across the country tell me that there is hope. Humanity isn’t cooked and there is time to right the ship.
I’m happy to see a return of goodness and decency. I don’t care who has sex with who and how people choose to identify with their gender. It doesn’t effect me or my kids one iota. What I do care about is people being able to eat, to go to the doctor or just be safe in public with colored hair. It still astounds me how outright angry some people get over blue or purple hair. I really don’t care what anyone does as long as it isn’t hurting others, and in the end that’s what it should be about. How we treat our fellow humans and taking care of our neighbors.
Empathy and compassion are not political. It is human and natural. It is how little kids are until they are taught otherwise. It is how communities and countries grow. They grow together, not tearing each other apart or kicking the sick ones to the curb.
These are just some thoughts I have today on this exciting morning. I feel more hopeful and joyful than I have in about ten years or so, I wasn’t sure if it was ever coming back. I just wanted to share these thoughts and hope it resonates with others out there. Take care of yourselves and each other, and America truly will be great.
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