The reason I used to be more conservative...
When I was 18-20 or so, we were poor. Dirt poor. My ex, during the first 5 years of our relationship, could not hold a steady job and had a major medical emergency requiring three life saving surgeries. I had two babies during that time, and was young and uneducated and trying to get out of retail/foodservice and my foot in the door of professional corporate America. We were struggling.
I tried to get help, when we needed it. A couple of times, and on a short term basis, was my intent. In Cincinnati, the private run (often church run) charities provided better help to me than did the public welfare system. My experiences taught me that if you go to the government offices for help, you will see a lot of black women draped in gold jewelry with manicured nails and cell phones (this was, remember, before everyone had a cell phone, 1997-2002 or so.) And you will wait forever, have to spend all day, be told you're missing this or that piece of paperwork, have to go and come back, and they'll do everything they can to deny you, especially if you have a man and woman in the house trying to raise kids. If you don't meet criteria, you get nothing. If you do meet criteria, you get everything, even (in one later instance I experienced) more than you are asking for, want, or need sometimes.
Real help was with the private food banks and organizations who took into account your actual situation.
We became homeless when my first son was 4 months old, and got on a greyhound with the last of our money and what we could carry, and went to Des Moines, Iowa for a new start. Things slowly began to get better.
We were a "bootstraps" family. We came from nothing, we worked our asses off for everything. And when we were in need, the government turned their backs on us, and it sure looked to me like the minority women draped in gold jewelry with their fancy manicured fingernails were getting their benefits a lot more easily than I could.
And at that time in our low income bracket, I remained not married to him for the first 10 years of our relationship, because the earned income credit and tax code favored me being a "single mom." We lost thousands of dollars every year when we actually got married, but we did it because he was going into the military and the benefits outweighed that in the bigger picture. Fact is, the tax benefits of filing married are nonexistent under certain circumstances. It sure looked to me like the government was incentivizing single parenthood, when I was determined and struggling to have a nuclear family, to give my kids a life with a mother and a father and at least a very convincing facade of harmony and love.
It really looked to me like the hopes and promises of the Liberal ideology were a big fat lie. And like I was being punished for trying to keep my family together, work, and fight our way out of poverty. Seemed like social progress would come from the people, the old racists and bigots and sexists would die off...so what the old white guys in office thought maybe didn't matter about social issues, so long as the people led the way in tolerance and kindness. But when it came to economic policy, I wanted to keep what I earned. After all...the tax I would have to pay sure wouldn't go to help me out.
I could only count on myself. No one else.
At that time I was not really aware of libertarianism, though I was fairly libertarian in my thinking. But since what was presented as viable options for consideration in elections was always a Republican versus a Democrat, and clearly the liberals were just lying and suckering everyone so they could take our money, I identified for a while as a Republican.
Today I call myself a "liberal-tarian." I think that a lot of the ideas of the left are great, but I still have very serious trust issues.
Also, between my days of conservativeness, and now, I have watched supposedly Republican presidents GROW the Federal government and in other ways also betray their ideologies enough to know that I cannot trust any of them, either. But I've also seen enough abuses by Big Business, that I don't trust a supposed "outsider" if he's someone like trump.
I'm just fairly suspicious and cynical of all of 'em, if you want to know the truth. But I felt good about Bernie on a deeply instinctual level. I think he could have done a lot of good as our President. I wish he'd been elected.
So I know why I was more conservative in the past, but I just feel things are different now. I mean, I feel that there was a chance, a danger and a risk, that Trump/Pence would do what they could to destroy the lives and civil rights of so many people. And I wonder "how could anyone not know about this risk?" and while I understand that most trump voters had other reasons and motivations, I cannot help but feel that even knowing the risks, they decided it was WORTH IT...
I'm struggling right now. I'm a white woman, newly divorced, and I took on 75% of the unsecured marital debt, and will likely have to declare bankruptcy. I am getting no support and no alimony. I rolled over and took it one last time, because I would rather that, than be enemies with a man who presents a danger to me. I make good money, but I get to keep very little of it. I barely make it from one paycheck to the next.
Losing access to abortion wouldn't affect me, my tubes are tied. If I can convince myself that there are not more people willing to commit assault upon me in the world today than there were a month ago, then I could say I have little to lose with a trump presidency. I could have been one of his supporters, if we're doing those kinds of mental gymnastics.
Except that I've got this damned moral compass in my gut, or something...even trying to think about it it's like I'm running into an invisible wall. He is and was always too repugnant to even consider. Maybe because having been married to an abusive narcissist I know what one looks, sounds, and smells like. I don't know. So while I totally understand how someone could be a Republican....I still don't understand how someone could stomach voting for Trump. Unless they have such a lack of empathy. In which case trying to get them to see your point of view, trying to use compassion and understanding to connect in kind and fair ways, is only likely to get you a boot in the teeth.
