While I voted for eight other Democrats and only one other Republican, I did decide to start off my ticket with a vote for Trump. Not because I like Trump but I do not like the cult-like culture around Kamela and Democratic Party, or how so many people were saying that Trump’s election will mean the end of democracy. I want to prove them wrong. Truth is, if I had the easy option to vote third party for somebody like a Jill Stein or Chase Oliver, I probably would have voted for that candidate. I didn’t vote for him as Republican, as I couldn’t bring myself to vote for a Republican, but I did check his name on Conservative line. Just as a protest to system that is doing everything to push me towards voting for Kamela.

I know the candidates positions on the issues and I agree Kamela shares many of my beliefs. She would be a better president. That’s a fact. And I am not stupid, I know probably better then most how the game of politics is played. After all, I am a political director, a seasoned political operative with two decades of experience. I have run all aspects of campaign, coordinating and supervising campaigns, bringing together the resources that make a winning campaign possible. Now that I’ve moved to data side of things, I am less in the midst of all the mud slinging, but I do still get my hands dirty from time to time. Politics is in my blood. And I know damn well with the electoral college and how all votes in a deep-blue state like New York will ultimately go to Kamela Harris, voting against her does no harm.

I just don’t like being told who to vote for. And I like the dysfunctional nature of Trump. If anything, Trump is not a dictator, he’s a buffoon. Trump isn’t going to take over the nation, and if anything he will struggle even more in a second term in the White House then the first without his good friend and helper veteran Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Without McConnell’s leadership, Trump would have never gotten his tax cut package through, nor would he have gotten the conservative super-majority on the Supreme Court. Trump doesn’t really get power, but he sure does get played by anybody who can roll enough flattery on him.

It’s dangerous we are told to have a buffoon as the head of the nation, we are told. That’s if you believe the President is an actually important person, and not just another bureaucrat – one of millions in the government. Indeed the President is a leading cause of indigestion for millions of Americans – who eat their TV dinners in front of their color TV – believing the mystique that those high resolution pictures of people in distant lands. But I have my doubts, it’s not like there is a lot of federal agents patrolling the local highways for speeders and drunks. I really like the idea of having Trump in the White House, so we can run Democratic candidates against him on state and federal level over the next two cycles. See, we’re not as bad as the buffoon in chief! Pay attention to rodeo clown, he’s the real menace to society.

But won’t Kamela do all these great things for electric cars and renewable energy by attending children’s science fairs and giving wonderful speeches that make the organic mash potatoes and avocados on smashed toast go down so well while watching the evening news? Or how her proposals, like bound a stillborn death in Congress sound so good, if you believe the government will solve all your personal problems, rather then yourself. Universal Healthcare! Free College! Better Roads! More Renewable Energy! I don’t expect the federal fire department to come and put out the fires of nation burning to the ground from climate change. It’s a crisis only solved by protecting ourselves as society won’t. Nor do I expect big checks or even modest tax cuts to come under Kamela. I sure would like to spend less money on taxes, so I can invest more and eventually own that off-grid cabin out in mountains.

I concede by looking at my own net worth and investments, we are living in mighty heady times under Biden. I mean inflation sucks, but so much money is rolling in with high fed rates and booming stock and bond markets. Kamela probably would be better for our country on so many levels, and maybe I hope she ultimately wins in swing states and leads our nation for next four to eight years. We could use somebody besides the geriatrics running our nation for a change. At least she would appoint confident people to run the government, though not everybody that Trump appointed was a smoldering garbage fire. I mean, Jerome Powell is a remarkably mature and well thought out Federal Reserve chair. I think Trump wants to fire him, and that’s terribly foolish.

That said, I kind of really like J.D. Vance. Not his politics so much, though I know plenty of hillbillies who share his politics. He wrote a good book, he has similar roots to me, growing up in the country. I understand his M.O., even if it is wrong on many levels. But he understands the small towns and what they face. And I do think Trump will be good on the second amendment. Or at least better, but probably still too far to the left, as witnessed by the bump stock ban. At least he’ll appoint conservative, more pro-second amendment judges. I think he’ll be less prone to locking up more and more of the federal lands as wilderness, though if anything he just will be mostly ineffective, as only third-rate people with little governing experience will likely be attracted to his administration. If anything, I think his second term will be more mediocre then his first. Nothing really will get done, just four years wasted. Probably with another economic crisis or other disaster, made worse with zero leadership from the top of government.

But so be it, I hope grass becomes federally legal. Kamela would be better on that front, though plenty of hillbillies also like getting stoned — pot is a popular crop in hills and hollars. And I probably let me love of J.D. Vance and his small town roots get the best of me. I voted for the buffoon in chief, who except for guns, I don’t agree much with. But go figure, my vote in a blue state doesn’t count for much.