Confession: I am 33 years old, I love all things red, white and blue, and today was my first time ever in a voting booth. And I’d be lying if I didn’t also confess I was slightly disappointed when Lee Greenwood wasn’t playing in the community center while I voted. But that’s beside the point.
In 2005, I had the privilege of working in Washington, D.C. right in the heart of our nation. I loved every second of the fast pace and rubbing elbows with such “important” people. There’s a constant energy on Capitol Hill that’s intoxicating and irresistible.
But what I didn’t love was the small glimpse of corruption I witnessed first hand. I saw representatives’ votes swayed with gestures as small as boxes of candy bars. There were almost always 2 truths….the real truth and then some sort of vague, whitewashed truth the constituents were told. Frankly, it was enough to make me lose hope in our system.
While I love our great nation, I started to see that politics is really nothing more than the culmination of thousands of handshake deals made to benefit and prolong political careers. I’ve never voted because I honestly didn’t see the point. Whoever was elected wouldn’t really represent me or be my voice in Congress like they are supposed to be anyway.
But this year I feel differently. It’s no secret we’re on the Trump train; not because he’s perfect or even close, but because he’s not a politician. It’s that simple. I haven’t been around just a whole ton of billionaires, so I can’t attest to their business practices. But I have seen the way many career politicians operate, and I know its certainly not how our forefathers intended our country to be run. I may not even like the guy on a personal level, but at least I know where he stands. And after my short time in D.C., I can say, that alone would be a breath of fresh air in our political system!
There will always be corruption….that’s the nature of the beast. But Trump doesn’t need anything from anyone. He has no reason to be swayed based on personal favors or dollar signs. I’d like to think he will demand transparency from the top down; while we demand to be heard from the bottom up. And we’ll slowly eat away at all of that Capitol Hill nonsense. At the end of the day, I’ll take rude, arrogant and uncouth over dishonest, phony and groomed any day of the week.
So today, Trump’s got my first vote.
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