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March 28th, 2024

Insight

When losing an election makes you lose your mind

Alicia Colon

By Alicia Colon

Published June 14, 2017

When losing an election makes you lose your mind

The first and only time I fell into a deep depression over an election result was in 1976.

It had nothing to do with my party affiliation since my previous loss was a vote for Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

I had never voted for Richard Nixon but felt positive about what President Ford was doing to salvage our poor economy.

As a young mother, this was an important factor in choosing whom to vote for. He was making harsh but important decisions and he lost because of a headline in the NY Daily News that read, “Ford to City:-Drop Dead.”

Ford was trying to save taxpayer money by threatening to veto any bill that would be a federal bailout for NYC to avert default. This angered the bureaucrats, political hacks and unionists who were responsible for the city's financial woes so the media went full tilt against Ford and the voters elected a peanut farmer governor of one of the poorest states in the union.

This, in spite of the fact that his lieutenant governor was Lester Maddox and he was associated with noted racist George Wallace. Blacks voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats anyway.

That the party pulled it off seriously and the media proved so powerful put me in a funk for about a week but I had other things like pregnancy and a one year old to deal with so my depression was short-lived.

But what if I weren't married with children but a millennial living at home with Mom and wondering how to pay student loans and other bills like the woebegone Hillary, Sanders voters of 2016?

Would I have become bereft of all hope and sunk into a morass of self pity, anger and hatred of the winner?

Would I have been joining groups to sabotage the new administration within mere weeks after the inauguration?

Would I have resorted to vandalism, anarchy and vicious attacks on the new administration? Of course not.

So why is this happening now?

Oddly enough, I did not vote for Ford in the GOP primary. But after reading Ronald Reagan's position on issues, I voted for him then and in '80 and '84 and G.W. Bush in '88.

In '92 when Bush ran against Bill Clinton, a female relative said she was voting for Clinton because Bush was too old. Another sister in California didn't speak to me for two years because I dared to mention the sexual rumors that had cropped up about Clinton. By this time I had become used to the powerful machinations of the liberal press which then exploded in '08 with fawning idolatry for Barack Hussein Obama whom they failed to vet thoroughly.

While I was deeply saddened by the lost elections, life went on and more important issues took precedent like my brother's battle with late stage cancer. One of the things that sustained him was his fervor for our president Donald Trump and what he stood for.

Nightly, I'd get calls from him praising and repeating his speeches. At one point, he felt well enough to consider running for office himself. Alas, his battle ended in April this year and I lost the one Republican in my family except all those I raised myself.

The presidential election of 2016 was an entirely different ball game because the man who won was a completely different animal.

A billionaire nonpolitician was elected who was also very dangerous to the settled bureaucratic elite in both parties because he is uncontrollable by the special interests that rule Congress. The wrath and derangement that spilled forth after the election and continues still is unprecedented yet not completely surprising.

Although it made absolutely no sense, the hype for a Hillary Clinton presidency was relentless and overpoweringly waged in all sources, including the media, the Internet and social networks.

There were very few critics asking the important question --- why this woman?

She carried more baggage than an airport porter yet only one candidate (Trump) chose to call her a criminal.

Then an unlikely rival cropped up promising free stuff to millennials who didn't bother to note that nothing from the government is free but was paid for by taxpayers. They also failed to question why this socialist senior citizen hadn't accomplished anything in the decades he served in Congress.

Wikileaks would go on to release DNC emails showing that it was favoring Clinton over Sanders and outlined ways to defeat him. Oops.

The millennials were easy to fool as most had been indoctrinated by academia to despise and distrust all things Republican. The older Democrats still confused the current party with the ethical one in the past and refused to untie that shoestring.

It is clear that the Democrat Party has become the amoral party of progressives aka Marxists and not the one my family grew up with. There are no Zell Millers or like-minded thinkers left here.

The term 'generation gap'cropped up in the early sixties but it wasn't really accurate as it only referred to cultural tastes. Today there is truly a generation gap that not only refers to tastes but to core values and the gap is YUGE.

How can we who were reared by the greatest generation connect with those reared and tutored by progressives who do not believe in work without a government check; that the world revolves around their every moment; that have no belief in a higher power or intelligent design; who basically think their fecal detritus is fragrant; and basically have not learned to reason or question rationally?

In my opinion, the nation hasn't been this polarized since the 1860's with families divided over a national issue. Even during the Vietnam War, the divisions were between the silent majority and what they viewed as commie pinko militants.

Since there was a very real possibility of dying in an Asian war, one could understand why the youth waged against the war. I used to have arguments with a young 19 year old co-worker who later fled to Canada to avoid the draft. I ran into him years later when he admitted that his protests were a result of fear. Very understandable but I just don't understand what is happening with the protests today.

If you're a conservative who voted for Donald Trump even though he wasn't your first choice, you may have ended up ostracized by the Democrats in your family or have ended up writing off a number of friends who've expressed contempt for your choice. It's a very wise policy not to discuss politics or religion but hard to do when your career is about politics.

I've been called a moron, a deplorable, unhinged, and worse by those whom I once believed were reasonable but have now lost their minds. I choose not to return that vitriol for those I care for and hope that one day they will come to their senses and realize the sky is not falling and our POTUS may succeed in making America great again.

He will do this in spite of all the mainstream media, leftwing pundits, social media, the entire Democrat Party, RINOs, Hollywood celebrities and Soros minions spending his billions waging phony protests against him.

I will continue to pray for President Trump's success and I encourage the rest of the deplorables to wish him well.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

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