Why am I an Independent? The correct question is, “why isn’t every voter.” Personally, when I turned 21 in 1967, I had already been interested in politics for eleven years. Of course I was even more serious about the subject when the War in Vietnam escalated the year after I graduated from high school in 1964.
My decision was simple. I am independent. I reserve the right to make my own decisions about everything. This is why I will never belong to a single religion, and why I do not watch television news. I refuse to have anyone tell me what to believe or how to act. It was natural for me to reject both the Democratic and Republican parties. The first time I voted for a single party was in 2000 when I believed that George W. Bush would greatly harm our nation if elected. I was right: and sadly that situation continues today with the worst, illegitimate president in history trashing the White House.
Prior to 2000 my choices were simple. Party was of no importance. All that mattered were the policies of the candidates I would be voting for. The man or woman who received my vote was most closely aligned with my own beliefs.
Sadly, in 2020, only one man in the Republican Party deserves my vote, and I cannot cast my ballot for him. He is the junior Senator from Utah, former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
Senator Romney is the only man or woman in Washington who believes in the principles of the Grand Old Party, and supports the Constitution. The remainder, all 250 of them are “Republicans in name Only.”
They have proven time and time again that they are no longer Republicans, they are members of a new party, the “Trump Party.” Although Trump violates the Constitution constantly, 250 men and women in Washington continue to support the orange buffoon without dissent. 52 of 53 Republican senators voted to acquit Trump at his impeachment trial, although the trial was a sham without witnesses or the introduction of new evidence. Moscow Mitch McConnell would not allow a fair trial.
After Senator Romney vote in favor of removing Trump from office, he offered a definitive and eloquent statement. This is just a small portion of his reasons for voting with Democrats.
“I take an oath before God as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced. I was not wrong.”
He continued, “Accordingly, the president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust. What he did was not perfect. No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.”
You can read the entire text in the attached article.
I did not vote for Senator Romney in 2012. The truth is I felt President Obama was the best candidate for me. However, unlike 2000 and 2016, I held no animosity nor did I have a fear of him possibly becoming our nation’s 45th president.
Romney is an American. I cannot say the same about Trump, Pence, Moscow Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley, Steve King, or the other former members of the Republican Party.
Op-ed by James Turnage
Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey
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