Voting in the Upside-Down: RFK and Tulsi Gabbard's Trump Endorsement - A 2 Part Series
Dealing with voting dilemmas, political disillusionment, and nuanced decision-making. Nibbling around the edges of political weirdness and my rising fear and confusions.
(This is an audio voiceover of this essay. I HIGHLY recommend that you listen and even better, listen while reading so you can hear the inflection in my voice which will give you a better understanding of where I’m coming from.)
Story-at-a-glance
Complexity and Confusion in Politics: The essay highlights the challenge of navigating a political landscape where voters feel torn between candidates with both appealing and very concerning qualities.
Fear of Divergent Views: It explores how polarization amplifies fears about differing political views and the anxiety of living under an opposing regime.
Disillusionment with the Two-Party System: The essay critiques the limitations of the two-party system, expressing a desire for more authentic and diverse political representation beyond the traditional Republican and Democrat choices.
Introductory personal statement
The purpose of this particular blog is to highlight what extraordinarily confusing, nuanced, complex times, especially politically, that we’re living in which often creates murkiness around which path to take because so many different things need to be considered and balanced out.
For some, this might not be the case so - right, wrong or indifferent - I applaud you, but for other more nuanced people like myself, it’s not quite so easy. Primarily, these are the people I write this for so they can see that they’re not alone in their confusions.
The following writings are to help me flush my feelings out around recent political happenings. Before we begin, I’d like to ask you to do your very best to sit and receive what my feelings are separate from what your politics and fears might be around “the other side”. If you’re triggered by what I say, I’d like to suggest that you take a step back and take a moment to look at that.
Ask yourself why you are triggered by me trying to process things for myself?
Is it because you disagree?
If so, and that stirs up a lot of energy in you, look deeper than that. On the surface, it may seem that’s the reason, but underneath that, it’s more likely the fear that you’re feeling is because I’m not in lockstep with your beliefs.
In these deeply polarized political times, that likely scares the hell out of you because what my feelings represent to you are likely the fear that I may not vote the same, which is completely my right. I can even not vote at all and there’s nothing you can do about that.
Often the deepest fear is that you might have to live under one of the regimes that you disagree with which I totally understand because my truth is that there are HUGE things about BOTH sides that scare the hell out of me which is why I want to see in writing what I’m feeling about recent events.
I don’t mind when you disagree and that’s perfectly fine. You do you. But hopefully it doesn’t go any further than that because, in the same way that I allow you the freedom to feel and believe the way you do in politics, and everything else, I expect you to offer me that same freedom and respect.
The truth is that there’s absolutely NOTHING you can do about the way I view things, EXCEPT possibly showing some curious kindness in a conversational exchange that might help either one of us see things in a bit of a different light or at least understand why the other might feel the way they do.
This might not change things, but✨mindshifts✨, no matter how large or small, generally show our openness to grow.
We don’t get to tell anyone else how to vote, what to feel, or what to think, and most of us seem to have forgotten this recently. We can certainly disagree and we can have a civil respectful conversation, hopefully sprinkled with a bunch of questions to try to clarify and understand instead of putting each other down, calling each other names, and bloviating on why the other one is wrong or bad.
I’m just a regular person trying to make sense of what I see happening while sorting out how I feel about it all in my state of fascination and confusion about all manner of things these days.
You’re welcomed to join me with an open mind and heart bearing witness to my personal process which is much more what this writing is about than the actual politics and parties themselves. I merely want to highlight the nuances of the chaos we’re experiencing and what others might also be going through.
Needless to say, these are interesting times and what I write today, may change in a year, a month, a day, or even hours from when I post it. If you don’t hold me in a box, I won’t hold you in a box and we can openly share this journey together. I reserve the right, especially as a female, to completely change my mind at any time.
Today, that’s often referred to as flip-flopping, but that’s what open-minded people who aren’t stuck in their ego do when they grow and see things in a new light. They shift their trajectory with new information which is always a good thing in my book…and I do that quite often.
Lastly, I hope you’ll really steep yourself in the fact that this is a process -MY process- and there’s no need to take my thoughts on this personally. I’m not making anyone right, wrong, or bad. I’m just a chick thinking out loud trying to figure out my own path in the midst of the political shifting sands of weirdness.
Please don’t condemn me for weaving my way back and forth across aisles and issues just because you might be dead solid in your opinion. I hope if you’re REALLY aggravated at what I share, instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by unsubscribing, unfriending, or flaming me, that you’ll kindly reach out so we can discuss things. That’s what mature adults do and many of us seem to have completely forgotten how to do so with respect and eloquence.
As for me, I feel that our democracy is in peril and neither of my political options for president make me feel secure that it’s going to be fixed so I’ll have to hold my nose and vote for one while knowing that I’ve got DEEP concerns about the other candidate or party being in office. The concerns are just different based upon who gets elected, but several of them are really important longer term .
And THIS feels TERRIBLE!
In the long run, I hope something about my process resonates with or opens up something in you.
Meanwhile, be a voyeur and come bear neutral, detached witness to my inner world as I try to unravel all my strands.
If you’re blinded with rage when engaging on this topic, you might want to have that looked at because your preferred media might have you by the tail.
What to write about?
I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write about this week but kept circling back around to the continued weird confusions that I keep feeling around politics. I’ll see if I can flush it out here by writing about it as my thoughts and feelings continue to fluctuate around it.
This past week Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. kind of sort of suspended his presidential campaign which set into motion a whole host of other events which I’m intrigued by when I’m playing detached observer. So this is the spirit in which I share.
Some housekeeping and homework
First, if you haven’t heard RFK Jr’s suspension speech, I HIGHLY suggest that you listen to it, especially as a frame of reference for this Substack. I don’t agree with all of his views, as I don’t with a.n.y.o.n.e. which is what makes this election so difficult for me, but I don’t completely write someone off because I don’t agree with things they say and think more of us should learn this balance.
But there are truths in there that relate to the very foundational fabric of our country, constitution, and civil rights that is being frayed -and worse- as we continue to move through this absolutely WILD election cycle, combined with a larger host of other things that are happening as we speak.
Read it instead
I know some people have difficulty listening to RFK talk which is likely a decent size drawback for a presidential candidate. He has what’s called Spasmodic Dysphonia which causes the voice to be raspy and uneven.
For those that would prefer to read instead of listen, here’s a written transcript.
From here, if you haven’t read or listened to his speech then you may not have those nuances to fully consider what I’m processing which may create or enhance a wonky lens that you’re viewing my words through.
As for RFK, I’ll say that I like him but there are things about him, like ALL the candidates, that I’m not fond of. I’m not going to lay all that out here because this writing is more about MY PROCESS in these confusing times than it is about the actual candidates and people.
For reference sake
What do I like about him?
First off, I’ve been an independent or have declined to choose a party for 3 decades now, although sometimes I have to change it for voting ease. RFK’s an Independent which always catches my eye because, for me, this deeply entrenched and controlled two party system doesn’t appeal to me much. It’s not working good from where I stand and hasn’t been working for a very long time.
I have difficulty believing much of anything the standard republican and democrat Coke and Starbucks candidates say while also having issues with some Independents as well. While it looks like we have a choice, I don’t believe we do because the parties generally decide who their candidates will be, not us, imho.
To me, even though there are certainly some unsavory things that Robert F. Kennedy had done and said that I don’t agree with, but I have still felt that he’s fairly authentic. Look, no one candidate is going to be perfect and walk on water. If it appears that they are, they either haven’t been living authentically or they keep scrubbing the internet to remove their public dirt.
Kennedy’s words cut through clearly for me. He talks about so many things that I have interest in like ending our endless wars and the chronic health and disease epidemic in the U.S. This epidemic is caused by poor lifestyles and the consumption of ultra-processed and ultra-palatable, highly engineered foods with scientific chemical names that I can’t even pronounce which barely have any nutrients in them to keep a human body in good health.
He talks about the very poor health of our children. Here are just a few shocking statistics even to me who keeps up with this stuff:
Close to 40% of children have overweight or obesity
30% of teens have prediabetes (this was 11% in 2002)
1 in 36 children are on the autism spectrum (up from 1 in 150 in the year 2000). This number is 1 in 22 in California
18% of teens have fatty liver disease.
American girls are starting puberty years earlier than they were in prior centuries, and are starting earlier than any other continent in the world.
More health statistics can be found here on the Dr. Casey Means website.
If you’re interested in this kind of data and information, you might also want to check out this snippet of a two hour interview with surgeon Dr. Casey Means and her brother Calley Means who was a lobbyist for the food and pharmaceutical industries.
And if you want the full Monty experience, the truth of which might blow your mind, here’s the full length podcast.
But wait, there’s more
Kennedy also talks about the importance of protecting free speech and the threats of censorship which I’ve seen a TON of over these last many years, as well as the corporate media control that most of us are finally waking up to. I guarantee I’ll be addressing this issue in a future posting.
In addition, he talks about a multitude of things related to our collective chronic health with problems like corruption, big pharmaceutical companies, big agriculture, and CAFO’s.
I have deep interest in such things and like to hear him speak about them which is part of what he addresses in his speech. This is part of my draw to him even though he also talks about and believes things that I’m not in alignment with.
Getting to the part where my confusions started
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his campaign and then endorsed Trump. This might not have surprised others, but it did me. I guess because I never stopped to think about what he might do when his campaign ran out of steam and I knew he and Trump held each other in a bit of contempt.
What changed? Did they meet eye to eye on enough things and decide to continue to disagree with the others. There’s a piece of that that I wish more of us would do.
Or was Kennedy being an opportunist to just try to get into any party that would accept him so he could try to get some things accomplished as an insider that he can’t as an outsider? Or was it strictly for personal gain?
While I say that he feels more authentic and balanced to me than the other two candidates and that I am in alignment with a large number of the issues that he calls out, I didn’t know whether I could vote for him or not.
You see, I live in a deeply red state. Our state has the highest ratio of Trump voters in the country - 68.6%. Living here has made it easier for me to vote my conscience across party lines for whomever I think is the best candidate because Trump is a shoo-in here.
This completes part 1 of this posting. I’ll post part 2 next week.
In conclusion of part 1, I’ll leave you with this short video from a man that shares similar feelings to myself. The one thing that I know is that I don’t know everything, nor do you, which should make us sit back a bit to chill and actually listen.
You can probably see the similarities with him in my writing in the fact that I believe this and you believe that. Some things we might agree on and others not so much, but we don’t have to be at each others throats trying to bash each other into a concession.
That doesn’t work!
If you’re interested in other writings that I’ve done around politics that are about politics but not political, check them out.
Community Questions
How do you personally navigate the complexities of choosing a political candidate when/if you have concerns about all the available options?
What are some key issues or values that guide your voting decisions, and how do you prioritize them when faced with conflicting political platforms?
Do you only listen to media, podcasts etc. that agree with “your side” or do you run the spectrum so you can better understand all the perspectives?
We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Oh, and I’ll be on vacation so if you comment, I may not be able to respond until I return. Thank you for your patience.
Do you know someone who might resonate with or benefit from this posting? If so, please feel free to share it with them.