I started voting for President in 2004. I was a member of the College Republicans and was excited to vote for George W. Bush to be reelected vs John Kerry. I owned a Bush/Cheney hat and a hat that says proud to be a Republican, but it does not say Republican, it has a picture of the GOP Elephant logo. In 2008 I worked for a Republican polling firm and I drove out to Iowa and volunteered on a Republican primary campaign. I happily voted for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 for President.
In 2015, this cancer appeared in the GOP primary named Donald Trump. He came down that escalator and immediately appeared to be a sideshow. He was the carnival barker that was interesting to watch but would never be taken seriously, or so I thought. When he led in the polls in the summer of 2015, I thought it would be a historical footnote like how Hermain Cain led in the primary polls for a week in 2011. As we all know now, that did not happen. I won’t go into that here, I have spoken a lot on what happened in the past but suffice to say, it happened.
In 2016 I voted for Evan McMullian because I did not want to vote for either main party candidate and I wanted to send a message that the GOP needs to disavow the racist populism that infected it. I also thought Clinton would win easily so I didn’t need to vote for her. Still, when Trump won I prayed that he would seek wise counsel and take the job with humility. He did nothing of the sort.
Initially, Trump surrounded himself with people in his cabinet that would be helpful, but when Trump didn’t like what they said, he got rid of them, just looking for yes men. Rex Tillerson was a great pick for Sec. of State, but quickly replaced by Mike Pompeo. Gen. Mattis was awesome, and now Trump hates on him. Jeff Sessons was the 1st guy in the senate who supported him, and when he rightfully recused himself, Trump totally turned on him.
Trump is demeaning of the office. The President of the United States is supposed to be our Head of State, a job he does terribly. The government now havs diplomatic relations with nations now by tweet! That is so absurd and is just consider it normal now by many. He regularly makes fun of our allies and showers praise on our enemies. He has a strange fascination with authoritarian power.
I hoped Trump would grow into the job and I could support him this time. I won’t rehash all of his personality flaws here, but the most important to me is his lack of humility. He never admits that he is wrong on ANYTHING. He thinks that admitting a mistake shows weakness, which is totally not true. I give Trump considerably less flack for COVID than the media does, but why can’t Trump just say he got something wrong early on and then fix it.
So I think Trump has clearly shown he should not be President, but what makes me take the step to actually endorse Joe Biden? I think Joe Biden is your average center left Democrat. I believe that an average Democrat is far, far better than Donald Trump. I don’t buy that Joe Biden is a huge leftist. He is no Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Even if he is, what will happen is the party will try to go too far to the left and get voted out. I don’t worry about the state of the country with Joe Biden as President. I do worry about the country with 4 more years of Donald Trump.
Trump is an arrogant unqualified person for President of the United States. He had 4 years to grow into the job and all it has done is made it more apparent he is unfit to hold the office where he is. I am happy to vote for Joe Biden in 2020 to hopefully save the soul of the Republican party, hoping to have a day where I can get my proud to be a Republican hat out of the closet it has been in the last 6 years.
Nic Shayko 