You should know who you're dealing with. Whenever you read something on the internet, especially a blog from someone you've never met, you should take into account that person's background. Determine whether they might have an agenda, an axe to grind, whether they're telling you the truth as they understand it, or if they're spinning, or just outright lying to you in the hope some slime will stick.
You should do that ALL the time, especially when it comes to politics. Trust no one, at least until you get a feel for where they're coming from.
In my case, I'm going to make it easy for you. I'm a lifelong Democrat. I first gained an awareness of politics during Watergate, and I haven't seen anything in the intervening 42 years to lead me to believe that the Republican party is anything more than Robin Hood's evil twin, which exists for the primary purpose of taking from the poor to give to the rich. Sure, there are other ways in which the Republican party is awful; the culture wars do a wonderful job of trying to maintain white male hegemony over the rest of the country, but I'm more or less confident that the true conservatives simply latched on to those issues as a convenient way to get people to vote for them, so they would continue to be in a position to take from the poor and give to the rich.
On the other hand, Democrats rarely champion anything that I get very excited about. For most of those 42 years, I voted for the Democrat because the Republicans are so very, very awful. I wasn't even excited about Obama in 2008 --- he seemed too moderate. And while I thought Obamacare was a poor substitute for universal single-payer health care, it's certainly far, far better than the system the Republicans propose, which is, essentially, nothing. I've read arguments stating that Obama is the most progressive president since FDR, and I'm sure that's probably true. I expect posterity will remember him as one of our better presidents --- in the top 25%, anyway --- but I've been disappointed in his record on human rights, especially considering he studied constitutional law.
But whatever. I think you have a fair idea about where I'm coming from.
As for the current election, Hillary is yet another Democrat I'm not particularly excited about. I didn't participate in my state's caucuses, and I didn't care too much whether Hillary or Bernie ultimately won. On the Republican side, however, they have ramped up the awfulness of their nominee considerably. Other than those who get their information solely from FOX News or other tentacles of the right wing noise machine, it's clear that the Republican party has devolved into a parody of itself. If the consequences of a Republican victory weren't so serious, it would be comical. Cruz, Paul, Bush, Rubio, Fiorina, Carson, Christie, Kasich . . . clowns, every last one of them. And then there's Trump, the king clown. How anyone can look at this guy and not see that he's basically a bad used car salesman is beyond me. Qualified to be president? About as qualified as Homer Simpson.
And that's before we even look at his campaign promises. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say if you actually support the policies this guy is championing, you must have flunked your high school civics class. Practically everything he's proposing is un-American, and some aspects of his platform amount to war crimes. Again, it would be comical if it weren't so serious.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up where I'm coming from when I write this blog. So you might expect that I'm only doing this because I'm in the tank for Hillary, but that's not true. As I've started to pay more attention to the election, I am frankly dumbfounded to find that there are people who oppose Trump as strongly as I do, but who also think Hillary is corrupt, a criminal, generally bad, etc. So I thought I would take the time to figure out where all of this Hillary hatred is coming from. Who knows, maybe these folks have legitimate reasons for hating her so much.
Or maybe it's just more right-wing conspiracy nonsense. I guess we'll see. But I guarantee I'll do my best to be straight with you. After all, I just told you my background; I didn't have to do that. Also, I'm not a slave to some partisan agenda. For example, in 2004 when I wrote the blog Bush Campaign Lies, I actually acknowledged that 9 of the 37 alleged John Kerry 'flip-flops' genuinely were flip-flops. I do my best to adhere to the truth.
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