Take your Democratic Party and shove it: I ain’t workin’ there no more

I didn’t get out to the No Kings protest in Staunton today; and want to be clear here, it was a conscious decision.

It’s the hurt feelings on my part from a recent spate of hate mail from supposed fellow Democrats that got me to do the old take my ball and stay home thing.

Basically, I let myself get goaded out of wanting to be a helper anymore.

I’m human, like everybody else.

It started when I wrote last week about how we made the business decision to sell the AFP website to a marketing company in 2022 because I was going through some serious health issues, and didn’t want to leave the family unit with nothing if something bad happened.

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ICYMI

• We sold AFP in 2022: Now the site is back under our 100 percent full control

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I wrote that story so that I could share the good news – that, hey, we’re buying it back, yay!

The response from some of y’all, man, I didn’t know that I had that many enemies in local Democratic Party circles.

But I get the message – working literally 365 days a year to try to keep people informed, good; trying to make sure the missus is taken care of if working 365 days a year to try to keep people informed kills me, bad.

It’s good knowing where I rank, down there with roadkill and an overflowing toilet.

The other round of, ahem, friendly fire, came as a result of the column that I wrote last weekend about Nelson County going full-out MAGA.

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ICYMI

• Nelson County has gone full MAGA: OK, so, don’t spend your money there anymore

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The controversy was my advice to people from out of town to find another way to spend their spring and summer weekend days than traveling the Nelson 151 craft beer, cider and wine circuit.

The number of folks who decided that the better course of action is to be mad at me than at the MAGAs on their Board of Supervisors who voted to affirm the county as a Second Amendment sanctuary and to tell people not to vote for congressional redistricting is, you know, it’s interesting.

Another thing to do would be to get mad at the MAGAs on the Board of Supervisors, maybe organize yourselves into flipping the political representation.

You know, maybe also start a local grassroots campaign aimed at emphasizing to the out-of-towners, the BOS doesn’t represent us and our values.

Or, send me sh-tty emails, because that’ll do a lot of good.

Getting mad at the local news guy might make some folks feel better, but I mean, seriously, how important am I, right?

As far as No Kings, it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, whether I’m there at a protest to chronicle what goes down.

I’m sure several hundred people were out there today to show where they stand on the excesses of the Trump regime.

I’m proud of folks who do that.

Particularly here, the two cities are slight majority Democrat, but the surrounding Augusta County is 70 percent-plus MAGA.

Just being willing to be seen at an anti-Trump rally in these parts takes guts.

Kudos.

I wish for the folks who braved the day that Democrats would present themselves as a viable political alternative, but for all the hard work that a lot of folks did to flip the statewide races and the House of Delegates last year, Abigail Spanberger & Co. are governing in the Vichy tradition of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, more afraid of upsetting the apple cart than standing for what we need them to do.

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ICYMI

• The UVA president situation was Spanberger’s first political test: She failed

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And, yeah, sure, that’s better than what we’re getting from Team Trump, but.

I don’t know about any of this stuff anymore.

I mean, I know that Ben Cline is an awful congressman, but is having a McAuliffe representing part of the current Sixth District in Congress any better?

I like both Tom Perriello and Beth Macy, but the look-at-mes in our local activist circles don’t think either are a million percent perfect enough to represent them, and I’ll be honest here, if they keep their shenanigans up, they’re going to re-elect Ben Cline, and with the majority in the U.S. House expected to come down to a seat or two here and there, wouldn’t that be something, if our idiot local activists are responsible for getting Mike Johnson re-elected Speaker of the House?

My interest in any of this isn’t in having my favorite team win against the other team; it’s universal healthcare, it’s K-12 education, it’s fully funding Pell Grants, it’s protecting basic civil rights for people of color, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, it’s making sure people can earn a living wage.

I understand why the racists and misogynists among the hardcore MAGAs take every opportunity to kick me in the shins.

I give up trying to understand fellow Democrats.

Former fellow Democrats.

I ain’t workin’ there no more.