Dear Republicans, and anyone else who doesn't respect someone's choice in political ideology,
This year's election was an emotionally charged, nearly religious experience for many, many people. Except my mother, who was in bed by 9:30. But I digress.... I'm hearing many stories of people being accosted on the street for showing support for a specific candidate, and I'm hearing more that a few accounts of my Republican Brethern vomiting sour grapes all over everyone.
I want you to go back in the way-back machine to 4 years ago. I want you to picture the morning after Bush was elected for a second term. And I want you to remember the angry, borderline-lynch mob Democrats you were greeted with as you walked in the office. Remember how that felt? Remember maybe feeling like you had to hide who you voted for because you thought perhaps your friends would think less of you? I do. I remember that. I remember keeping my head down while my co-workers were practically rabid with anger that anyone in our country could be that STUPID. That IGNORANT. That RACIST, CLASSIST, MISOGYNIST, CREED-IST...insert any other terrible IST here. I remember feeling like a Christian in Rome. Remember how that felt? Maybe not. But I do.
I remember feeling discriminated against. Because I voted with my gut. I voted for whom I believed was the better candidate. And that's not saying much. I did my homework. And still I was judged. I was maligned and I was sneered at. And it felt like shit.
So, this year, I decided to go with my gut again, and my gut, my Republican gut, told me to vote for Obama. So I did.
Republicans, and specifically those who want to go around blaming the Democrats for making a choice you don't agree with, I want you to realize, that it's not the voters' fault. It's our party. The Republican Party has absolutely abandoned anything remotely resembling the ideology of our past-leaders. The RNC might as well have dug up Lincoln and raped him with something hard and sandpapery. So, you want someone to blame? Blame them. But don't blame good, intelligent people who just want to be able to shed some of the shame America's been lugging around for the last 8 years. Who want to travel without being told "Don't let them know you're American. Put a Canadian flag on your backpack." Who want to know that for the first time in this nation's history, we don't have an old, white asshole running things.
And I'm here to tell you right now. If one Republican gives me shit for it, sinks to the level of the Democrats of 4 years ago, (and you know who you are Democrats), and tells me I voted for a terrorist, and doesn't respect me for the intelligent, well-read, reasonable person that I am? I am going to tell that person to go fuck himself.
Unless it's my grandmother. Then we'll just agree to disagree.
