I voted yesterday. I dropped off my mail-in ballot at the Lancaster City offices. Two police officers on duty at the entrance watched me drop my ballot in the box.
Since 2016 I have wondered if the next election I vote in will be the last free and fair election.
Russians did not know in 1991 that the presidential election would be the first, last and only free election they would ever have.
Germans voted in 1932 and did not vote again until after their country was in ruins and under the control of the countries that defeated Naziism. For East Germany, they would wait until after the collapse of the Soviet Union to vote again.
I believe the 2022 elections will be as corrupt as the Republicans can get away with, but they will do their authoritarian worst in 2024.
Last week I was talking to a group of friends who are mostly independents. I was defending my loyalty to the Democratic Party. I tried to stay numerical. The most recent numbers say 40% of Americans identify as independent vs. 26% R and 31% D. And yet those 40% of people vote almost entirely with one party or another and have no political power as a bloc.
Being an independent means having no power. Being a party member evokes that memorable line from "The Wire" when the retired mayor explains to the hopeful candidate what the mayor's job is like:
"Every morning I sit at my desk. They bring in a big, steaming bowl of shit and I have to eat every bite."
For a former military, fiscally conservative, pro-Israel voter like me, I find something to disagree with every day in being a Democrat. But the alternative is the orange-god-king worshipping racists who want to burn democracy and rule from the Redneck Versailles in Florida.
So I will be happily loyal to the Democratic Party and support everything I can and hope national debt does not become a multiple of the our GDP.
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