This time last year, I didn’t know anything about Politics. I didn’t even know what was going on in the world due to my aversion to any type of news media. I avoided the news like the plague because there was something about the presentation, the robotic rhythm of the Presenter’s voices, that I did not like.
My mother, on the other hand, was a bona fide “news j
unkie.” She had her TV on a news channel 24/7. The only time she had anything else on it was for an hour a day when her soap opera was on. So I always knew that if anything important happened, she would tell me; so I pretty much had no reason to concern myself with it.
I also avoided politics because I felt that the politicians were the most insincere and deceitful people. They would say whatever the popular opinion was to get the votes but didn’t do anything for their constituents. So, I felt it was pointless to concern myself with politics and even more pointless to vote.
As much as I avoided politics, I couldn’t ignore how bad the economy started getting toward the end of George W. Bush’s term and it got even worse under Barack Obama. Job loss was happening everywhere and many people also lost
their homes, their way of life and hope. I also noticed that Obama did nothing to improve the job situation throughout his two terms and things that mattered to less of the population, like gay marriage, was given greater attention.
When the Primary elections came around, I held a temporary job registering voters in the county elections office. During this time, I started to become inspired to be personally involved in the voting process. I still didn’t feel like my one vote made a difference, but wanted the experience of voting anyway.
I decided I would vote for either a Republican or a Democrat because it’s usually someone from one of these two parties that ends up being the President. I set out to research the platforms of the candidates, those of whom I had actually heard of, under these two parties. I had limited myself to these particular candidates because I knew voters typically vote for the known candidate rather than the unknown and I wanted my choice to win.
My main concern was job opportunities and to maintain at least a middle-class life; not slip down into poverty, losing everything that I had worked so hard for up to that point.
To me, it seemed it was likely going to end up being either Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders that would win the Presidential election.
Where I live, I remember seeing a lot of signs and bumper stickers for Bernie, a few for 
Trump but none for Hillary, unless they ended with “for prison.” lol
I always had a bad feeling about Hillary and felt many others did too. My mother couldn’t stand her and dreaded what the world would be like if she became our next President.
There is a certain vibe you get from people and something about her just didn’t sit right with me.
Trump, I was unsure of. I remember seeing him on reality TV shows and hearing him do that iconic, “you’re fired!” Other than that, I felt he was just bold, even brash, savvy businessman, smart and arrogant.
I didn’t follow the news or watch any of the speeches but I did watch a few videos on Youtube to get a feel for Bernie since I wasn’t on the fence about him. He at least talked about jobs, the “shrinking middle class” and he was running against the sketchy Hillary. So, I made a decision that I would register as a Democrat and vote for Bernie. Please keep in mind, that at the time I knew virtually nothing about Politics and was basing my vote on feelings and experiences.
Somehow, Hillary won the Primary election despite there being a lack of public support for her from what I had seen. I knew at that point, I would need to choose between her and Trump in the General election since he had won the Primaries for the Republican spot. On November 8, 2016, I went to the local polling place located in a church and cast my vote for Donald Trump. To my delight, I later found out he won.
Once he became elected, however, riots had ensued for more than a week. There were daily reports of damage and looting, cars being set on fire and windows being smashed in. People getting hurt. I couldn’t understand any of it. Had never seen it before. Usually, it’s quiet after elections until inauguration day.
What were people protesting? What is the big deal? The part that bugged me the most – was the young age of many of the protesters. 
They all seemed to be around 18 – 24 years of age. Too young to really know what it was like to live through 8 years of Obama, national economic collapse, bankruptcy, job layoffs, or home foreclosures. They never had to work for what they have yet. Basically lived on someone else’s income so they didn’t have a clue what it was like to face losing everything they worked hard for.
How could they possibly feel that their place in life gives them a bigger say over the hard-working people who had voted for our new President??
I did what I normally do when I look for answers, I turned to YouTube to see if anyone had made a video about it to explain the madness for me. YouTube had recommended a Paul Joseph Watson’s video which was about the riots.
Video: https://youtu.be/1d9lm-T87AQ
It was a brilliantly made video and it turns out he has many other brilliantly made videos as well. I became so intrigued, I started watching more of his videos. 
Suddenly, my recommendations page was filled up with all kinds of political videos from different people and I watched some of theirs as well.
A whole new world opened and I had a lot of new words to look up. “Cuck,” “SJW,” and “Snowflake” to name a few. I also started to understand what had confused me about people for a long time. Why there were those who cared about jobs and paying their bills to have a comfortable life and those only wanted personal lifestyle choices above all else; even if it meant everyone would live in poverty.
It also explained why the media didn’t seem to care about the unemployment problem (even falsely reported lower numbers) and set a priority to publicize gays being able to get married instead.
The reason? Different ways of thinking and ideologies. It was conservative thinking vs liberal thinking. The priorities of each side seemed to be the exact opposite to me.
It was at this point I discovered that my way of thinking would be considered 
conservative.
Conservative? This distinction still seems weird to me and I feel funny when people call me that. When I was growing up, the conservative people were staunch and regimented in their daily lives. Woke up early, got to bed early, paid bills on time, and watched the TV News. On the other hand, liberals were free-spirited and tolerant. They believed in the “live and let live motto” and were non-conformists. They stayed up late and slept in. They did what they liked but did not let it affect anyone else. They also believed in having very little government involvement in their lives. Freedom for all. The latter is how I still identify my stance.
The stark contrast of what’s considered liberal nowadays and what it used to be (or at least how I thought it was) is still stunning to me. With everything being so redefined, my way of thinking and values could only be classified as conservative (as weird as it feels.)
It’s like someone re-wrote the dictionary, changed the definitions and somehow got the whole world to see it under the new way. Another word that has been redefined is “feminist.” The feminists I used to know passionately cared about gender equality and the
advancement of women. They would have never been able to accept mistreatment of women from misogyny and sex crimes that get ignored because the perpetrators are Muslims. I don’t see any of these traits from today’s feminists. All I see is aggression, hate and virtue signaling.
Let’s not forgot about “safe spaces.” Another new term. Because many modern-day liberals do not have the ability to have a supported argument, or can’t stand the truth since it doesn’t fit in with their view of the world, many will find a place they can retreat to; even to the point of censorship and taking away other’s rights of free speech and expression.
The more I learned and communicated on social media, the more I became curious to what political party I would likely fit into. I knew I would be considered a “conservative” but what party should I call myself? If I was really on the right, then how far right? Should I be something other than Democrat? Republican maybe? What the heck is Libertarian? What about American Independent? This was me then.
The more I learned, the more I became convinced that I was not a Democrat. In fact, when I looked up Republican, the values on that side fit more with my own. At the same time, the actions that President Trump was taking had made me more and more proud that
he was our President. I voted for the best person for the job. He sort of reminds me of my one other favourite President from my childhood – Ronald Reagan.
As these two men are both Republicans, and what I learned about the party had been in alignment with a lot of my own values, I re-registered and changed my party to Republican.
Still a little doubtful, I also took many political quizzes at this point and shared my results on Twitter along with a few other people. One quiz said I was “center-right,” another said “centrist” and still another was a graph that put the little dot to the left of center.
When I shared this, someone on Twitter had told me that I was a “Classical Liberal” but was also very quick to add “not to be confused with an SJW or feminist.” lol
Okay, so that makes a little more sense, however, with what liberal means nowadays, I hadn’t felt comfortable using that term when referring to myself until I saw my favourite Paul Watson had described himself as that recently in response to all the articles written about him being “alt-right,” I’m suspecting.
Now there’s another new term. Definition of a Classical Liberal is this: “Classical liberalism is a political ideology that values the freedom of individuals — including the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets — as well as limited government….” – Chegg.com. Yes! That fits!! This feels right.
I have also been researching what Libertarianism is all about as well, and feel this also
fits me. The ideals such as freedom and ownership of oneself, are ones that I identify with as well.
As of today, I have a greater sense of who I am and learned a lot about areas that I had stayed away from for far too long. I’m even keeping up with current events through alternative media and have come to learn that mainstream media cannot be trusted
I love learning new things and this has been a fascinatingly, interesting ride so far. 🙂
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