That is just cult-like ugliness above. I can’t get past that. I remember when I was proud to be a Republican. I do. I was even an RNC 2000 Media Relations Volunteer. I lent a U.S. Congressman who was a platform speaker cab fare because no one else recognized him. I met Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his then wife Maria Shriver. I felt like I was part of something that mattered.

Then slowly it started to change. More and more I split my ticket when voting. The last GOP Congressperson I believed in was Jim Gerlach. Mostly because you knew he actually cared about his constituents, and proved that helping us fight eminent domain in Ardmore. Through him we met other Republican Congressmen like Jim Sensenbrenner and John Boehner. And I actually liked both of them.

But these Republicans? They are part of the political party that no longer exists. They are Trumpublicans, bought and paid for and influenced by a person who has spent his whole life gaming the system.

What has survived and what this political party has morphed into is ugly and violent and full of hate fueled rhetoric that is more cult than political. I just can’t do that.

I saw the changes coming and 2016 was when I said no and walked away. The GOP chose a man who has as his greatest accomplishment turning this country into a version of his ugly soul. That was my moment when I realized I was no longer a Republican as that party wished to define it vis-à-vis him as a candidate.

The simple truth is Donald Trump has never ever changed who he truly is. I remember when he was in the Academy Ball Book for the Academy Ball benefitting the Academy of Music. I remember thinking then now decades ago how sleazy he looked, and why didn’t the people posing in the photos with him for this great non-profit see it? I will note some of these people still support him, and I still don’t understand why now any more than I understood why then why they thought he was wonderful.

It’s simple: he’s the ultimate charlatan. He’s the Jim Jones of this era, and much like Jonestown of 1978, Trump’s followers today have drunk the Kool Aid, only as opposed to 1978 it’s not spiked with poison it’s proverbial.

I don’t know why it’s so easy for people to fall in love with him. I think they’re looking for things that are lacking in their own lives if you want to know, my honest opinion. because if you have a rational mind, he doesn’t make sense. And that’s why you are seeing all the Republicans that all these Trumpublicans used to worship being maligned because they have stood up and said enough this isn’t the party of Lincoln. This is NOT our guy and this isn’t a person for this country and it’s time to vote country over party.

And these believers? A lot of them are the ones who make everything more unpleasant even in our every day lives when they try to politicize everything. It’s like he gave the schoolyard bullies we grew up with a voice. They even bully their own co-believers. You can’t be part of the popular lunch tables unless you do exactly as they tell you.

And now there’s all this last minute campaign rhetoric coming right from the proverbial horse’s mouth, like that if Trumpublican men’s wives vote for Kamala Harris, it’s like cheating on their husbands. I mean seriously? What kind of bullshit is that? The ones that are on the fence? No one can see who you are voting for. You can vote however you choose you do not have to tell a soul. It’s your constitutional right, and as I told a Republican I know last week, the thing I wanted them to think about was the fact that they had daughters. And if they wanted their daughters to be absolutely guaranteed to have their rights preserved even to be pro-choice, then Trump wasn’t their guy. I said they weren’t just voting their preference. They were also voting the futures and rights of their children who could not vote.

I have to wonder since Trump wants to take care of all the women whether they want it or not if he had his druthers, would he repeal a woman’s right to vote just like he got rid of a woman’s right to choose?

I don’t expect my words to sway anyone. I am only expressing how I feel which is my right. do I have children of my own? No, I was never able to have them, but I am voting for the future that I want my stepson to have and my niece and my nephew and my friends and other family members kids and their kids after them.

Every day if you turn on the TV or you turn on social media or you pick up a newspaper all you see, are these rallies of ugliness. A chant of fight fight fight. Fists in the air that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany or any communist takeover even if the hand/wrist action is not exactly similar. It’s a feeling.

If you want to have your vote count, you can’t just vote necessarily the way your political party expects you to. You have to look at the bigger picture where it is literally country over any party.

Again, I can’t tell any of you how to vote, only encourage you to understand that we can indeed handle a female President. She represents among other things what I believe our forefathers wanted: the changing face of a country founded by immigrants.

Vote for our forefathers. Vote for the women who came before us. Vote for Abigail Adams. Vote for Dolly Madison. Vote for Sarah Bass Allen. Vote for Carrie Chapman Catt. Vote for Matilda Joslyn Gage. Vote for Susan B. Anthony. Vote for the Mercer girls. Vote for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Vote for any of the women whom you know or are related to. Vote in memory of those women you knew who are no longer with us.

I hope you choose Kamala Harris, just because it is the right thing to do. The GOP, the party of Lincoln is dead. Voting like mom and dad might of won’t mean anything because the GOP they believed in, again, is dead. If you had asked a much younger me would I vote Democrat let alone become one, I would have simply said “no way”, yet here we are.

Being a true “patriot” doesn’t mean walking lock step for a petty dictator waiting for his next opportunity while waving false flags. Being a real patriot means doing potentially a personally difficult choice, but as an American you know in your core, that you need to vote for a woman who will preserve the US Constitution, not obliterate it for personal gain.

Again, your vote is your choice. Just please remember all of those who fought, bled, and died to make this country truly free. Those are the true patriots. They wouldn’t want a man who is a threat to what they accomplished for all of us to get a second bite at the apple.

I am not any more of a biddable Democrat than I was a biddable Republican. I look at the candidates beyond mere political persuasion. That makes me inconvenient to any political party and I don’t really care.

I hope everyone votes as an American on Tuesday. I hope everyone votes for their country over party.

That’s all.