Right to Left to Forward, a First Time Mom's Political Shuffle

Let me start this off by saying that I supported Donald Trump in 2016. I want to be very clear and real, and try not to be ashamed of the choices I made.

I supported Donald Trump in 2016.

I was 19, had been living in southern Tennessee with a horrible boyfriend for about a year, and was being exposed to nothing but anti-Hillary, pro-Trump, anti-politician, pro-hardwork rhetoric. And I fell for it. I fell for it hard.

I was a hard working American, after all! I had been working since I was 16, I was too poor for college, I saw the economy going to shit when I was in high school and it CERTAINLY wasn't slowing down any! I was living with my boyfriend, had been for a year, and didn't rely on my parents for anything. I was on my own, independent, and HATED capitalism in America.

So when a man swooped in who I thought (at the time) was a good business man, who could pull us out of this financial funk, ally us with the world, and make America as great as it was when I was a kid-- well, I was gone. I was head first 100% submerged in the fantasy of knowing that this man was going to be able to bring us up out of the funk we were in and MAKE US GREAT AGAIN!

And then some discrepancies, if you will, came out that I didn't have excuses for.. Bankruptcy. Sexist comments. Lewd expressions. Remarks that made me uncomfortable. But you know what? The way the evil soul sucking Democrats talked, they must be over exaggerating it! They must be just being dramatic! It's no big deal if he was a little sexist because honestly? Anything was better than KILLARY being in office!

John Mulaney has a bit about Trump being like a horse in a hospital. I knew, back then, that honestly that's what we were looking at. But to me, to my family and some friends, it was either the horse, or Josef Mengele. We took what we thought was less evil.

And horses can be pretty cool sometimes, you know? Maybe we'd be totally fine.

Time passed and I very, very quickly realized that we all underestimated just how bad the horse was going to behave. We didn't realize it was going to be this awful, we really thought it was all talk. And we soon realized that even though this was probably still the better option, it was never a good one how we had thought.

I started to think about the 2020 election back in 2017, even though I kept making excuses for his actions, for his words... I wondered who'd actually run. I wondered where they'd get their money from, who could I look forward to seeing? I knew I wanted to vote blue, but I also knew I didn't want to make an uninformed decision AGAIN.

I think I expected Bernie to run again, but to be honest I've never really liked him much. He would have been the best option in 2016, but again, that wasn't exactly saying much.

I definitely expected Hillary to make a grab at it again. I'm glad she isn't running. I still don't like her. I don't think I fully expected Warren or Biden to run, but they weren't particularly shocking.

The people I never expected, but I knew their names. Kamala Harris. Beto O'Rourke. Amy Klobuchar. I had heard of these ones, though I admit I hadn't heard great things.

And some that I'd definitely not heard of yet: Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard.

Now I didn't bother keeping up with ANY candidates until about August this year. I knew a LOT of people were going to join the race, and a LOT of people were going to drop out.

There were 26 Democrats who started to run, as of September 20th, 7 have dropped out. I have been in the thick of the debates and polls since August and I actually only know around 11 of the candidates. The others are not being heard.

The ones that stand out the most, the ones who have a chance in my mind, are as follows:

Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Yang.

Those are the people I consistently see on the polls doing well. These are the people with steady support. These are the people I should look to for a Trump replacement.

And I found my candidate in Yang.

I don't actually remember how I got "#Yanged" exactly, but it was back in early September, toward the beginning of my research into the Democratic nominees. I remember looking at the candidates for the next September debate and I had heard about his UBI proposal, and I'd heard about how many conservative voters he was pulling.

I DO remember the interview with him that pushed me over the edge of indecisiveness.

I remember scrolling twitter, having just reopened my account, and the Washington Examiner had a video of him answering a question on climate change. The audience member asked a question, and he answered it fully.

In 12 seconds.

I wasn't used to that! I had no idea it was that easy to answer questions because no nominee had done that in years! So I dove into the depths of Twitter, scouring the internet for more. I was absolutely hooked, and the further I got into the "#YangGang" on Twitter, the less I wanted to look elsewhere. I knew immediately that this was my candidate, and by the September 16th debate, I had completely dedicated my online presence to this candidate.

Now what makes him so appealing? Surely it isn't as simple as him speaking well that has me obsessed with this entrepreneur-turned-presidential-hopeful, right?

Of course.

I found out in May that I'm pregnant with my first child. My significant other and I are absolutely ecstatic, and we are more than ready to bring a life into this world and raise it together. We agree on SO MUCH about Jasper's upbringing that it's shocking! We'll be vaccinating, and having a water birth, and agree no spanking, and will teach him to stand up for himself, and try our best not to treat him like a child when we shouldn't be and, and, and... It is going to be so easy to raise this child together and agree on what to do.

The problem is that it isn't easy to raise a child in this country right now. My boyfriend doesn't actually have health insurance right now. My health insurance only covers me. We won't be eligible for Medicare until Jasper is born in January. His hours at work are unstable and sometimes cut.. He needs a new job, we need insurance for both of us and the baby, and until then, we're a bit financially stressed to say the least.

With our tax changes over the last year and us not being able to expect our taxes to be refunded or even break even in the spring next year(that's right, I went from usually having $500/600 refunded to OWING almost $200 this year!!), we're in a bit of a tight spot. We have to upgrade our apartment (studio right now), look into getting a new car (my Scion iQ won't do the trick with an infant), pay off some expenses that have come up since we moved to Wisconsin, and LORD the medical bills! So we're looking for leadership that can help us ease that trouble over time.

Every Democrat nominee wants to help raise wages. That's a fact. But how they do it is what makes the difference. Bernie wants to raise minimum wage to $15 nationwide. That's nice, but I'm a SALARIED assistant manager already making that much! So it does nothing for me except slash the value of my work. Same with the other candidates proposing a minimum wage increase.

But not Yang. Yang wants to give every American 18 and up a $6/hour raise by giving them $1k/month for life. That's $12k a year.

As someone who's living check to check but doesn't qualify for much- if any- aid, that's MASSIVE. My partner and I would have an additional $2k in our accounts every month! That means eating healthier rather than eating all this ramen. That means better quality food for the dog and cat. That means going ahead and getting a 2 bedroom apartment rather than squeezing 2 adults, an infant, a cat and a dog into a 1 bedroom.

That means a college fund for my child. Something neither of us ever had.

Andrew Yang's UBI made me change my mind about my future, about OUR future, about Jasper's future. Instead of planning to move to Canada and escape the clutches of financial ruin that America puts almost everyone in, we can stay here and have a better future with him.

There's over a hundred reasons I support Andrew Yang, all of his 100+ policies on his website make me hopeful that he can do great things, because he really can. It's possible to make change happen NOW.

But at the end of the day, I changed my stance, I went from red to blue, I support Andrew Yang, because my son deserves better than what I have right now.

We all do, but the most important person in my life, who I won't even meet until January, is what makes me realize that this is the change we need.

I'm sorry if this was long, I have so much to say on the topic. I'm going to stop here for now, but expect to see more, because there is genuinely so much more to be written as my and my family's journey progresses. Not left or right, but FORWARD.