"So why the hell are you still in the party?"

[lapislzi]

That's what I WANTED to say, but didn't, to a man with whom I used to serve on my local Democratic Committee. I'm no longer involved in the committee, and neither is he.

I knew from days gone by, that my retired acquaintance is a former union steamfitter, likes to hunt, is a staunch Catholic, and that he and I have very little in common. Still, I figured...he's in the party, so he must have a reason, other than to get the literature to use as toilet paper.

I run into him every so often, as one does. Yesterday was the last straw. I saw his wife in the produce aisle, and hoped to duck into frozen food to avoid him. Too late, he was hanging out by the fish counter, and he recognized me. I said hello.

"So," he begins, "I saw your friend X (the current chair of our committee)."
Me: "oh, how is he? I owe him a call."
Him" "He's walking around with petitions for that phony Moloney." (Congressman Sean Moloney, our congressman, who unseated teatard Nan Hayworth in 2012)

Phony Moloney? Is that the best you can come up with? Did your fourth-grade grandkid come up with that?

Me: "Huh? All things considered, I think he's doing an OK job. Not ideal, but OK." (Keep it on an even keel, maybe open up some kind of discussion).
Him: "I ain't signing shit for that phony."
Me: "Well, Nan Hayworth is running again, and you saw how she turned out."
Him: "Goddamn right. And that Obama's a phony, too."
Me (thinking again that I might pry the door open a crack): "Well, I think lots of people are disappointed with Obama. Overall, I think he's better than--"
Him: "I didn't vote for him. I'd never vote for him. What a phony."

Fortunately, his wife showed up. We exchanged pleasantries and I ran out of the store, not even bothering to buy the thing I'd gone in there for.

As the words are screaming in my head (but I am too polite to say): WHY THE HELL DO YOU EVEN CALL YOURSELF A DEMOCRAT?

Can someone help me? I cannot imagine anything in the party's platform that could possibly appeal to this man, who has devolved over the years I have known him into a textbook teabagger. Why? Why does he keep his D registration?

Makes no sense to me.

[Warpy]

1. "Oh, so you've taken up wathing Fox since you retired. Gee, that's too bad"

and walk away would have done it. I'll suggest it for the future.

I'm an old woman. No right wing turd gets my agreement, tacit or otherwise.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. You would be amazed at the people I've run into who don't...

remember how they are registered. Or remember why they registered that way.

Considering that in my town around a third are registered with no party at all, it doesn't seem to be particularly important to many people.

[lapislzi]

4. He knows full well what he is.

Is on a first-name basis with everyone in town and county government, republicans all. Voted for each and every one of 'em.

He liked his position of influence when he was on the committee; I guess he thought he was steering the committee away from swinging too far left (which of course he hated, and which was happening at a reasonable rate, demographics being what they are).

Now he's just a bitter old asshole.

[polichick]

3. Joined when the party was big on unions, stays out of habit?

[lapislzi]

5. I don't even think it's that.

He likes to work the polls, likes the money it brings in. If he joined the republicans, he'd be waitlisted as an elections officer, as there are approximately eleventy billion of them in our district, and the slots are booked up years in advance.

Next time he starts shit with me on Election Day (which he has done in the past), I'm reporting his ass to the BOE and getting his can kicked out of the polling station.

[Mnemosyne]

6. They remain registered to throw off the numbers. An insidiuous infiltration since the 1980s, imo. nt