Category Archives: Life-Long Learning

I Will Vote for a Conservative-Minded POTUS (and that’s NOT Trump)

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For decades the party that stood for conservatism – that was guided by The Constitution was the Republican Party. I don’t think I am the only one that agrees with Senator Mitt Romney that:

I voted for the Reagan/Bush ticket in the 1984 election. It was my first eligible election and I didn’t really know what I believed. Besides that, I had no understanding that a vote could have lasting impact that could last for decades. Knowing what I know today, forty years later, I would probably take that vote back and… I have a variety of rather pale excuses for that vote.

  • I grew up in California and attended a private university in Southern California that offered sorority housing points for joining The Young Republicans campus organization. (Just being honest).
  • As a Business Administration – Marketing major, I was a “Neoliberal in Training”.
  • I was not “adulting” yet so I had no life experiences to shine a light on living as a financially responsible citizen in the real world.
  • I was not an informed voter.

After working in the business world, I went back to school and earned a teaching credential. I married and we began to work toward the American Dream of owning a home and starting a family. The American message was to be a “rugged individual”and then show off your hard work as a consumer with name brand products. We had the privilege and support to start a small business that is flourishing thirty years later. I wrote about “Gaining Awareness of My Opportunities”.

In 1992, I began to educate myself about policy and I researched candidates as best I could (without the internet). At that time, I was a registered Independent. I didn’t vote party line. I voted on issues and the platform positions of those who were running for office. I followed my paternal grandfather’s advise about voting:

Read. Inform yourself.
But in the end, sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

John Hillman

The 2016 election awakened me.

I was a Never Trumper even before he ran for President. His presence in the media through his various bankruptcies, divorces, and business practices made him unlikeable in my mind and not a serious person for any federal leadership position.

With his lack of any civil service experience and his misogyny and name calling during the primaries, I was surprised and shocked that the Republican Party made him the nominee. It did not matter who the Democrats put forth, I would be voting against Trump. As the campaign continued, it was becoming obvious that there was a support system that was moving away from the conservative values of the Grand Old Party (GOP). He was beginning to say things out loud that allowed others to change and morph away from civility. I saw a movement away from common sense and a slide toward accepting “alternative facts”.

I figured out early on that something was manipulating social media feeds and sending people down rabbit holes of disinformation. I deactivated my Facebook account because there were things I didn’t want to see on the feeds of my friends and families as they became more and more entrenched and angry.

When he won the electoral college count, I was disappointed, but not shocked. As I had done before when my candidate did not win, I accepted the outcome and hoped the winner would be successful because then it would benefit everyone. That didn’t last long. As I suspected about him, he showed his true colors at the inauguration. I suddenly feared for women’s issues – especially the right to make healthcare choices with their doctors.

I was called a hysterical alarmist. “Roe will never fall”. I wish I had been wrong.

All Americans have lived that presidency, COVID, and the January 6th Insurrection. I saw it all with my own eyes, live on TV. I cannot unsee. I have read extensively. I am informed.

I choose to “go with my gut”. I remain a Never Trumper.

In 2020, I moved to Arizona. I registered as a Democrat. With all of the women that had run during the Democratic Party primary race, I started the research for my first term paper after returning to grad school. Early in the campaign season, I was initially drawn to Senator Amy Klobuchar and met her at the first political event I ever attended. Once Harris was the VP nominee I began reading Kamala’s books, listening to her past campaign speeches, watching her Senate moments, and reviewing her hundreds of Senate Bill proposals and combed through her Congressional Record. When someone told me I was going to find myself on the wrong side of history I replied: “I will proudly wear the t-shirt”.

We are 100 days from Election Day, and I believe that:

Vice President Kamala Harris has more conservative policy positions than candidate Trump.

I respect Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney even if I do not agree with every one of their policy positions. I value what they say and share, because they put country over party and spoke truth to power.

In Adam’s Substack essay, “Trumpism Isn’t True Conservatism: Even He Says So”, I am reminded that I agree with many conservative positions and historical ideologies. Here are some of the points presented by Kinzinger:

  • Conservatives favor free markets.
  • Trump calls for sweeping tarriffs on imports. Trump is transactional for himself and has made promises to cut taxes for corporations and billionaires that support him.
  • Conservatives are for freedom.
  • Trump has promised troops to halt protests. Trump will not protect Reproductive Rights.
  • Conservatives support free speech and the freedom of the press.
  • He harasses reporters and in his past presidency wanted journalists prosecuted for leaking stories from his staff. He has attacked and diminished truth by calling it fake news.
  • Conservatives believe in the three branches of government and the balance of power.
  • Trump attacks the courts who do not support him and seeks to control Congress.
  • Conservatives believe in limited government.
  • Trump wants to expand his authority in a multitude of ways with the support of the authors and think tanks of Project2025.
  • Conservatives believe in “conservation”…of traditions and institutions.
  • “Trump has no respect for the wisdom of his forebears or the traditions that hold society together”. He seeks to make the DOJ his own “police force and law firm”. He has no respect for the rule of law and believes he should never be held accountable for any of his actions.
  • Conservatives believe in democracy and are anti-authoritarian.
  • Trump longs to be a dictator and he has said it out loud in a television interview.

MAGA followers call themselves conservatives but they do not know the history of the party or the policy programs of former GOP Presidents. Kinzinger reminds us that:

Abraham Lincoln fought to end slavery as well as protect and preserve democracy from Confederate oligarchs. He put into place a temporary income tax. He instituted the land grant program to give every state land for higher education and he opened federal lands to those who wanted to settle the West.

Theodore Roosevelt created the national parks to conserve our natural lands. He broke up monopolies to protect and conserve the free markets. He created the agencies to inspect food and drugs to keep citizens safe and healthy and he promoted irrigation and hydroelectricity to stimulate the economy.

Dwight Eisenhower expanded Social Security and when the Soviets launched Sputnik he proposed financial programs to support all scientific research efforts to match that program. He promoted high quality education and funded the interstate highway system.

Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conserve land, air, and water. He went to China to open up free trade relations and worked with other international leaders to negotiate and reduce nuclear war, as opposed to Trump who wants to isolate us from the rest of the world and abolish our NATO relationships.

Ronald Reagan saved Social Security from bankruptcy. He worked with Democrats across the aisle. Although he reduced regulations, he didn’t try to diminish the federal work force or take away experts in the fields to run the government.

The Presidents Bush in honor of Eisenhower and Reagan, promoted education and philanthropy. They were supporters of our allies in NATO. “Unlike Trump, they believed America should engage with the world through diplomacy, trade, and treaties”.

Reagan wouldn’t recognize Trump-style‘conservatism’ – a look at how the GOP has changed (October 3, 2023)

The MAGA movement has replaced the GOP. The Republican Party of just a decade ago is no longer. This was especially obvious with the multitude of missing participants at last month’s MAGA convention to nominate the 2024 POTUS ticket. Not a Bush, Cheney, or Romney in the crowd. Only a handful of former Cabinet Members. No former Speakers of the House. No Mike Pence, the former Vice President that he basically gave away to the rioters who wanted to hang him on January 6th. His choice for running mate this election is the most unqualified elected official – besides Trump himself the first time he ran for office.

“[Trump] has grievances , not governing philosophies or ideas”.

stuart stevens

In the conclusion of his Substack essay, Kinzinger notes an interview with CNBC that asked Trump about the upcoming four years if he was to win the presidency and Trump replied, “I’m not a conservative…”

Who is Trump running against?

Kamala supports breaking up monopolies that are elevating prices for record high corporate profits and not allowing free market competition and innovation. She believes in the freedom to make choices for your own body, to love who you want, and practice your religious faith in whatever way you choose. She supports freedom of the press and free speech and rejects book bans. As former prosecutor, she believes that no one is above the law and that this nation is based in the rule of law. She supports the balance of the three branches of government and has been outspoken about the need for ethics reform of SCOTUS. She is strongly outspoken against the Project2025 blueprint to expand the government into a form of authoritarianism that strips a great majority of Americans of their freedoms. This all sounds very rooted in conservative minded values.

Project2025 is in writing. They are not even trying to hide it. JD Vance wrote the forward for the book by the Heritage Foundation’s President – Kevin Roberts that outlines his involvement with the 900+ page blueprint outlining the plan for the next “conservative President”. It is not conservative. It is a playbook for a dictator – “on day one”.

I Choose Kamala.

In her first advertisement after becoming the presumptive nominee she stated:

We choose something else.
We choose FREEDOM.
The freedom not to just get by, but to get ahead.
The freedom to be safe from gun violence.
The freedom to make decisions about your own body.
We choose a future where no child lives in poverty, where we can all afford healthcare, where no one is above the law.

We believe in the promise of America…

#We CHOOSE KAMALA

Kamala Harris will fight FOR THE PEOPLE to CONSERVE DEMOCRACY

REGISTER TO VOTE and CHECK YOUR REGISTRATION

Hungry for Words

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I devour books. When I was a toddler, I pretended to read.  I quickly turned the pages of anything laying around the house looking for pictures to give hints to the storyline.  I speed read and swallow thousands of pages per month. Sometimes I linger and chew the words and other times I gulp them down and probably miss the full flavor.  

My first memory of formal reading is a record player with an official school looking program. I matched the booklet to the record label; dropped the needle on the black vinyl disc and then followed the voice . I was lucky and there was always something for me to read where I lived or visited. Dick and Jane were boring. My grandparents subscribed me to my first book of the month club.  My second grade teacher started a chart and challenged us to earn a sticker and fill it before the end of the year.  I finished it in a month.  She told my parents it was time for me to graduate from picture books with simple lines of text.  

The trip to the Buena Vista Library in Burbank, California, is one of my fondest memories. Besides having alone time with my Dad for one of the rare times in my life, I was introduced to the sight and smell of slivers of color in horizontal and vertical rows.  I was giddy.  Sensory overload at its most comfortable and cozy level.  I was in love.  With my first library card and maximum of three books, I skipped out into the sunlight with Nancy Drew and passion was ignited.  

I am a lifelong learner.  I believe it is in my DNA and passed down from my parents, and their parents, and back and back to whatever ancestors – from whenever time periods – in whichever lifetimes modeled it for me.  In the formal schooling window of junior high through undergrad college, I discovered I like to choose what I learn more than being told what to learn.  I have an independent streak.  

I have earned a Bachelors in Business Administration with a Marketing emphasis, a teaching certificate, a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction specializing in Middle School Mathematics.  I started a doctorate in Teacher Education and in my second year, we adopted my daughter.  Three kids came into our lives in less than 3.5 years.  After thirty-one years of marriage and twenty-three years of parenting, I have learned many things. I read and wrote and shared my insights on a couple of blogs.  I published and distributed, and sold, a magazine focused on healthy living and a healthy planet.  I became certified as an integrative health coach.  I became an expert in female reproductive health.  I am a flexible thinker.  I continue to sample new cuisines of topics. 

When my youngest graduated from High School, I applied to NAU to earn a Masters Certificate in Women and Gender Studies.  I am currently taking other courses to receive certificates in Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies (RWDMS) and Community College Higher Education (CCHE) in the English and Education departments.  I might wander over to the History department.  

In my almost six decades of life, I still feel the same excitement for a new class as if it is my first day of Kindergarten.  I begged to go to school once I learned there was such a place from cousins and neighbors.  I continue to dig into the vocabulary around me and try to make sense of words and terms in our ever changing and evolving society and world.  

One of the most impactful decades of my life was the pursuit of parenthood.  My three children came after multiple miscarriages, infertility, failed ART (Artificial Reproductive Technology), adoption, and the natural birth of my third child.  It was a journey I would not wish on anyone, but I would not trade away.  My current research and writing focus is a deep dive into the topics around the stigma of menstruation, pregnancy loss, and infertility.  In the United States, neoliberalism influence focuses citizens on the perfect pregnancy and the American dream of the nuclear family. This country doesn’t like to discuss blood and loss and failure.  

I am currently exploring gender stereotypes and the burden of responsibility placed on women to be the reproducers and the caretakers of children. I like to weave in and out and all around many topics.  I am curious, and excited, to see what comes from this experience with all of you. 

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In looking for fun images, I found this fun and creative children’s book by Oliver Jeffers:

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Illustrations and story by Oliver Jeffers

Literary Dinnerware is available for purchase CLICK HERE