The 2024 Primary in the US

This is a wonderful year where the US gets to vote for president. The truth is I am not looking forward to it at all. I have been working on a blog about voting in general and it isn’t done, and I think I will post it closer to the actual election for president when the mail in ballots start coming to houses.

But before the actual election takes place here in the US for the president we have to go through what we call primaries. This is where registered voters get to cast their vote for whom they want to represent them in a given party. This happens on both the Republican and Democratic sides. Since our current president, Joe Biden, has stated that he is running for a second term that means he will most likely win on that side. I happen to be a registered Republican (for now) and so I don’t get to vote on the Democrat side. I get to vote on the Republican side when it is our turn in Arizona. Yes, all the states do it at different times of the year. It all happens early in the year, but they are staggered. 

But this year things are already going poorly, in my opinion. There have been a number of people running on the Republican side. But the person getting the best polling numbers has been the former president Donald Trump. And as a result as of today there is only one other person still in the race against him and there has only been one state to have it’s primary so far (Iowa). 

I was really hoping that there would be an actual competition on the Republican side this year, and that maybe we would move away from the hatred and vitriol of former President Trump, but NOOOOoooo. There are enough people out there apparently that still want this guy in office.

I will admit that President Biden has not been that great of a president. He hasn’t seemed to have done much at all in office. Which has its goods and bads. He hasn’t messed things up too badly, but he also hasn’t made things better either. The economy certainly isn’t all that better overall, but it isn’t all that worst either in many ways. Our international presence has varied over his time, but I would say that we haven’t added many countries to the “They hate us now” list. Which is a good thing. I felt that when Trump was in office that list seemed to get longer.

Back to the Republican side. We are down to Trump and Nikki Haley. I personally like Ms. Haley. I think she has a pretty good head on her shoulders. Yes, she is still a politician and has been for a long time, but still shares many of my same values in government, life, and people, and most importantly she isn’t Trump. There were a few others running, but they have all dropped out. I don’t think any of them had a real chance of beating Trump or Biden, but it would have been nice to have them running to give the people the ability to voice their opinion.

I think Ms. Haley could beat Biden in the general election. I think she brings a lot to the table. She has experience on the international side of things that Trump certainly can’t. She can talk with people in a non-condescending way that would actually be pleasant to see from the White House (and from a Republican at the moment).

But sadly I know I am in the minority. Trump is polling way too high in too many places for Ms. Haley to actually pull off the nomination. Now, I could be wrong, and I hope I am.

I don’t see the overall appeal of Trump. He did do good things for the economy when he was in office, but that is really the only thing I can think of that is a positive, and there are way too many negatives that he brings. And yes I am judging him as a person. He doesn’t represent me. He represents rich, self-entitled, self-obsessed, willfully sinning, white men. I don’t understand how so many in the “Christian Conservatives” think he is someone that we should support. Yes we are all sinners, but he isn’t living a repentant life. He appears to be living a life of self and sin (I could be wrong and that is for God to judge, but from what I see…). I was really hoping that the indictments against him would cause people to stop and really look at who he is and what he says to everyone as the “leader” of our nation. But that didn’t happen. Yes, those indictments were politically driven, but if they are true who cares why they were brought to court. Maybe if he is convicted before the election then things will change, but I doubt it. I could totally see people in this nation still voting for him even if he is in jail. 

I realize this may offend some of you that read my blog. I know that some of you are Trump supporters, and that is your choice. I just don’t agree with you. And that goes back to the Tolerance blog I wrote. We can agree to disagree.

I want new blood. I want new ideas. I want someone other than Biden or Trump.