I’m not quite sure how it happened, or what specifically triggered it, but for the past year I had ventured into almost full-on conservatism. I guess it really all started when I began attending church on a weekly basis. I went through a bit of a period of time where faith was a way to find a foundation in my life that had so quickly been changing. I was in my few months of graduate school, and I began a bend toward religiosity. I started attending the Catholic Church and listening to Catholic Radio, which eventually morphed into conservative talk radio like Hannity and Glenn Beck. I even started to back Trump.
Now, I joined the Democratic party in 2004. I backed and voted for John Kerry and subsequently Barack Obama for both of his campaigns. I was a Kos member since 2007 and by every measure a full-fledged liberal, progressive democrat. I backed and voted for Tammy Duckworth, and was proud to do so. I still am. I am a veteran of the USAF, and have a very solid belief in backing our troops and veterans. So, it was this past week when Trump began to criticize and attack the Khan family and their religion—this most patriotic of families—that my liberalism began to re-immerge. Then there were his comments about the Purple Heart .
These two stories perhaps woke up something in me that maybe my support for Trump had nothing to do with the man himself and everything to do with this conservatism that had engulfed me over the past year. Beliefs that I don’t necessarily consider my own and that I struggled with the first time I heard them. But, eventually began to accept as necessary. So I started to search this week within myself, and to list out those things in this election that each candidate was proposing, so I could see if that would result in a better America. When doing so, it was easy to see that the America that the Democratic Party was offering was the better option.
So, thank you Mr. Khan for making it so obvious to me that Donald Trump held views that were unpalatable for me, and a temperament that was uncharacteristic of one who should hold the office of the President. Thank you for re-awakening a mind that inquires and challenges, rather than accepts ideas just because they are repeated enough times. Thanks for providing Democrats with one more vote in this election in Florida, the state I now live in. But, most of all, thanks for the sacrifice you and your family have made to this country. Thanks for raising your son to be the hero, that we could all only hope to aspire to be.