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Amanda's avatar

I am shocked at the number of wild assumptions about independents that have appeared in multiple places throughout this thread.

I'm an independent. I quit the Democrats after Hillary Clinton's post-election worldwide whine tour. (That was trivial, but it was the last of many straws.) I have never been a Republican (though I voted for one once, back in the DDDbeyondR -- it was either Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe, and I got a kick out of crossing the line).

I have left-wing values but I hate intolerance, smug self-righteousness, and the kind of careless thinking that lumps diverse and complicated people together and labels them as stupid, lazy, evil, or unimportant. I'm in a bit of despair because the groups I thought I'd be able to affiliate with if/when my country reached this point are turning out to seem inept and mean spirited. I keep my eyes open and look for chances to support anyone who's doing good work. I try not to lump other people into generic, dismissive categories. In other words, "independent" is a choice I made carefully and am proud of -- and I intend to stay that way until I can find something better to say about Democrats than "ugh, slightly better than these crazy Republicans I guess."

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Jeff the Original's avatar

I came to be independent from the other side of the aisle. I was GOP through the Obama years but had stopped drinking the kool-aid because it was SO OBVIOUS to me that he would never get a fair shake from the conservative media...and I was starting to feel this was becoming un-American.

Enter Trump and by 2017...I said goodbye to the GOP...as they were ignoring all of Trump's antics...or worse yet...excusing them.

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