I am, once again, an independent (AKA “unenrolled”) voter.
Dear Democrats,
I’m breaking up.
One year ago tomorrow (September 11, a day that I chose on purpose), I registered with a political party for the first time in my life. I have always prided myself on independent thinking, and my political views don’t align neatly with either the Democratic party or the Republican party. But faced with a President of the United States (POTUS) with fascist tendencies (to put it nicely), I had to take a stand. I did not want to compromise, because the political “center” between fascism and democracy IS fascism (https://kottke.org/24/08/the-political-center-between-fascism-and-democracy-is-fascism).
In the last year, however, I received zero communications from the Democratic National Committee (DNC, the national branch of the Democratic party), the Massachusetts Democrats, or the Acton Massachusetts Democrats. You wouldd think that a party that is losing voters would do more to welcome new members to its circle. Do more? They did nothing. Not a sustainable way to run a business.
While POTUS spews hate and lies at the rate of about 5-10 press releases per day (https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/), the DNC cannot keep up. (If I were in charge, then I would reply tenfold to everything POTUS publishes.) While the DNC website does have press releases, its website does not have an RSS feed (https://democrats.org/news/). Seriously? It’s 2025.
Finally, the right media publishes the vast majority of its content online for free. While the left media (including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post) lock the vast majority of their content behind paywalls. Guess which flavor of media has a wider reach.
We know what the Republican party stands for. What does the Democratic party stand for?
I will continue to periodically blog about politics (https://www.failblog.com/) (https://www.facebook.com/FailedPols), but today I am frustrated with both parties.
So yeah, it’s not me, it’s you.
Love,
Erik
P.S. But we can still be friends.
P.P.S. A reminder of how we got here:
* The Democratic Party Opened The Way For Trump (2020-09-18)
Critics of U.S. President Donald Trump claim he has brought ruin to the United States. For Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, that charge is too easy. He argues that liberal hubris has also played a significant role in the decay of American society.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/harvard-philosopher-michael-sandel-on-the-trump-phenomenon-a-1c97a86a-0e55-484f-ac39-90ec55ff39f8
About Erik J. Heels
Erik J. Heels is an entrepreneur, veteran, and the founder of Clocktower Law LLC (Clocktower Law) (https://www.clocktowerlaw.com/), a patent and trademark law firm in Great Boston (not a typo) that caters to startups. He earned his BS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his JD from the University of Maine School of Law (Maine Law). Except for a one-year failed stint from 2024-2025, Erik has never belonged to any political party. As it says in the ‘political views’ section of his Facebook profile: ‘Independent. I vote for the smartest candidate. It doesn’t always work out.’
