I enjoy it more now. I even allowed myself to advocate for a politician once; only once.
It was fun. I even changed parties from Independent to Democrat in order to vote in a closed primary (Florida)
But it was very hard for me because I’ve always been fiercely independent politically.
It was the 2018 election cycle. I liked Andrew Gillum (still do _ he doesn’t post much at this point but I liked him and like him)
He had strong ideas for Florida like improving shop classes in schools for more and better job training so that the kids that don’t go to college can slide right into careers if they like with practical experience under their belt – and a number of other very logical programs.
I decided “I’ll back the guy” but then I realized I had to declare a party.
Oh it was painful.
I spent HOURS going over his platform line by line – there were like 10 pages worth of bullet points. And I counted up what i agreed and disagreed with. It was over 75% agreement – some things I disagreed, even at my core about – but I couldn’t deny the 75% agreement. I wasn’t going to get any better.
But then I had to “go Democrat” to get him in the primary.
So I discovered Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida: Action & Discussion Group – the Progressive Caucus in Florida is a wing within the Florida Democratic party – usually fighting with it, trying to get it to be more progressive – but still within it. Some states have a separate party but Florida didn’t.
So I bit the bullet and changed to Democrat.
I advocated for him for months; got all excited and caught up in it. Watched him get a less than 0.5% away from victory. DeSantis squeaked by barely and a few months later, a drunken night and a non-stop character smear campaign and bogus charges against him by the DeSantis People who wanted to make sure he never ran again – set his career back for years. But he’s young yet.
[they were bogus charge btw – it took years but ALL of the charges against Andrew Gillum were dropped just a few months back after years of being stuck in court; all bogus – he committed no Federal crimes, even though the State of Florida claimed he did a few years prior – a true naked smear job].
Anyway, I let myself get caught up in it once. And it was fun. I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD why people like politics. I don’t think I’ll go that deep again; but I enjoyed doing it when I did.