I started to hate the GOP when...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Poppy and his ilk got my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip cancelled for having a puzzle that upset them. There was a puzzle to solve and it would give the answer to the question. The question: What is the Iraq war being fought over? The 3 letter answer: OIL. Dammit! Those turtles are so smart!

[billbuckhead]

1. When Davis Stockman said the "pigs were feeding"

When David Stockman said deregulation was a hoax, "that the pigs were feeding". I was an economics major in college at the time.

[Gato Moteado]

2. ...i was born

i was born in chicago and in chicago everyone is born a democrat. in fact, you can't even get your water turned on in chicago if you're a rebublican and, as my friend phil says, "that's the way it should be".

[Wetzelbill]

12. touche'

born in conservative Montana and raised on the Blackfeet Reservation. My grandfather was an Indian liaison in DC and friends with President Kennedy and former MT Senator, Mike Mansfield -who happened to be his former History teacher at the U of MT. The word "Republican" is synonymous with "Rat" in my family. I was born a Democrat - and although I'm often a disenfranchised one- I will die a Democrat. The GOP is just flat out awful. For the most part anyway.

[salvorhardin]

20. ...and yet wierdly

There's that whole Chicago school of economics and social policy (Strauss). Odd thing that. Hard to reconcile.

My college apartment-mate in Albany, which used to have a notorious Democratic machine, said when his parents moved into their house in the early 1950s (in the middle of Winter) they registered to vote -- Republican. Suddenly their entire street stopped getting plowed. After a couple days, the precinct captain knocked on their door and politely suggested that if they might just possibly want to change their party affiliation. He had a voter registration form with him, which they signed and later that day their street suddenly got plowed.

I don't condone that kind of political gangsterism, but it is an amusing story.

[RetroLounge]

30. Same here. Born in chicago.

Born to be a Dem, you have to, or you get tossed out to that trash heap Du Page County...

You gotta problem wit dat?

RL

[SemiCharmedQuark]

34. Ugh I went to High School in DuPage...

As if regular highschool isn't bad enough, my highschool was full of hardcore Republican bastards.

[flamingyouth]

3. The 1972 campaign and Watergate

I was in preschool, but I was raised correctly. ;)

[NewJeffCT]

39. LOL - my story is similar

I started to hate the GOP then, too. I was born in '66 and hated that when I came home, my afternoon cartoons were interrupted by Watergate hearings on TV!

[DebJ]

4. when I got trickled on by Reaganomics.

[childslibrarian]

5. Turtles rule!!

If only the world would listen to Splinter and his rodent wisdom...

[JohnKleeb]

6. when I found out how the GOP handled the depression from my g-folks

and heard about what FDR did, that made me a democrat.

[Wetzelbill]

14. and a proud Kucitizen as well. :)

[JohnKleeb]

23. damn right

[NightTrain]

7. I started to hate the GOP when...

...I was a kid and heard my father, a Teamster, complaining about "those Republican Nazi cocksuckers" who owned the company he worked for. My young mind figured, anybody who made dad that angry and upset couldn't possibly be any good. And boy, was I right!!

[dogtag]

8. The first time I saw Richard Nixon's face (n/t)

[Maleficus]

9. When I found out how much they're screwing us over.

That was in 1999.

[Lavender Brown]

10. Heroes in a half-shell!

TURTLE POWER! :D

[tjwash]

11. Reagan did it for me.

I was always opposed to the Republican party, but RR actually turned that into actual, real hatred. Having to listen to 8 years of his nightly newspeak about trickle-down-supply-side-bullshit economics, and how it was actually a good thing to drive our country into a massive crushing debt. How he ignored the onset of AIDS in the country, and refused to order and fund the CDC to nip it off in the bud because "only homosexuals caught it". How he started, and made the myth of the "welfare queen" a republican mantra for the attempted disassembling of FDR's new deal. How he would slice the budgets for public schools, and turn around and give away trillions to his pals in the military industrial complex. And the list goes on, and on, and on...

[Mandate My Ass]

13. Me too

I couldnt' stand the stream of warm-and-fuzzy platitudes all the while he was not only pissing on but also demonizing the less fortunate among us. Blech.

[tjwash]

15. My memories of RR...

[Mandate My Ass]

18. Pretty appalling

who would've guessed he was just the warm-up act for what we have now? x(

[tjwash]

21. I'm pretty convinced now, that Poppy Bush was the one...

...pulling all the strings back then as his VP. I mean, the similarities are just too great presently, to back then. Hell, there is even talk of bringing back that failure of a "star wars" program that was his pet project, and endless money hole back then.

I am 99.999 percent certain now, that RR's job was to just sign anything poppy bush put in front of him.

[Mandate My Ass]

24. I'm convinced too

I heard Poppy blackmailed Reagan to get the veep slot on the ticket. It explains soooo much about the Reagan/Bush I years. It also serves as s a prequel for what we have going on now with all the same actors playing all the same roles pushing the same failed, pro-MIC, anti-populist agenda.

[fugue]

16. The 1980 campaign

I was only fifteen, but Reagan felt like a used-car salesman. What came out of his mouth sounded even worse. And what I proceeded to see what he did, I became a liberal and have been one every since.

But I'm too far left to be called a Democrat. Kucinich is the only Dem who I've felt any kinship with.

[Goldmund]

17. I grew up in Serbia...

...and became politically aware during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic. There was a similar battle -- his supporters were the jingoist, closed minded, anti-intellectual, art hating, war-mongering goons with fat necks and beady eyes planted closely together in their skulls, pitted against the progressive youth, the cosmopolitan intellectuals, and everything decent. A 17-year old lad, my ship docked in Ellis Island in 1992 (OK, I may be embellishing the Ellis Island part, but JFK airport just doesn't carry the same romantic connotation) and I thought I was safely distant from the forementioned ghouls. But to my chagrin, specimens of the same breed were everywhere, and one was even running for re-election for President. Not long after that, I learned that here in America, they were called the GOP.

[mark414]

19. having been born in 1985

i always had opinions but didn't care either way.

when monica lewinsky happened (at the age of 13), i finally understood how evil those motherfuckers were when i saw how they went after clinton.

i've been paying attention since then.

thanks republicans!

[Ready4Change]

22. ...Whitewater was converted into the Clinton Inquisition.

In reality, the Whitewater Investigation should have ended with the findings that the Clintons were "guilty" of unwise, but not illegal, real estate dealings.

Instead, however, it got converted into an endless persecution for the obvious purpose of hamstringing a Democratic President who was just too damned successful. It hindered 8 years worth of what I still consider to be two of the greatest Presidential terms ever served. (And I'm a freaking Republican saying that.)

[ismnotwasm]

25. It was ronald reagan

I used to have a t-shirt with a well drawn picture of his face, with his finger up his nose. The caption read "Who picked this man?
Sigh. Wish I still had that shirt..........

[Jokinomx]

27. Welcome to the D.U. ismnotwasm!!!

Your username sounds Native American? LoL I hope that you enjoy your time here and look forward to reading your opinions. :-)

:toast:

[ismnotwasm]

28. Thanks for the welcome

No, not Native American, although my children are a little over a quarter. It's just a take on the "isms" of the world and the instant solutions many people seem to expect.

[Jokinomx]

26. After Raygun put us in debt up to our eyeballs

:kick:

[Aristus]

29. ...during Campaign 1992, and the furor over Bill Clinton's plan

to allow gays to serve openly in the military, and the Repukes went ballistic with their " 'em dang homma-sekshuls is ROOININ 'Murika!"......and I'm not even gay! Sympathy for the plight of an oppressed minority pushed me firmly into the Clinton camp. Now I proudly wear the liberal label.

[wickerwoman]

31. ... Selection 2000 happened.

I was never a big fan before that- born and raised a Dem- but before 2000 I could actually have a conversation with a republican without wanting to scream "What the fuck is the matter with you? Are you evil or just really, really stupid?" while smacking them over the head.

[Reverend_Smitty]

32. I started to hate the GOP in...

2000 right after the election. I was 16 and looking for a direction and purpose in life, I found it and it was to oppose the fascists at all costs! I remember I sported a Gore button on my backpack for months

[Sabriel]

33. I started when they tried to convince me my lesbian sister...

...was worthy of sub-human status. Actually, I may have hated them before that, but that's when it really coalesced into honest-to-God hatred.

[RevCheesehead]

35. It would have to be the 1988 campaign

I didn't care for repubs, and remember cheering when Nixon said he was resigning from office. When Reagan was eleceted (my very first vote ever was for Jimmy Carter!), I went through a period of mourning with the rest of the UW-Madison campus. Reaganomics irritated me, and Ronnie's platitudes about pulling onesself up by their bootstraps showed me how out-of-touch he was, waving pages of Classified Ads telling everyone there were plenty of jobs.

But for me, the defining incident was Iran-Contra. How people could prop up Ollie North and call him a patriot confounded me. I followed the hearings on NPR, read Woodward's book, and was thoroughly convinced that Reagan was behind the arms-for-hostages deal that kept the Iranian hostages until after the elections. It was then that I learned about GHWB having once served as the CIA director.

In that defining moment, I KNEW we had been had. I KNEW that was worse than Watergate....and then I realized that nobody cared, because we didn't want the country to go through another Watergate.
And when Poppy hired Roger Ailes and began his slime-ball tactics, I hit the roof. I remember how he attacked Dan Rather in a live interview, and thought "WHAT THE HELL is going on? And how can people support such a jackass???"

You add Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers, she-who-shall-not-be-named (and her lawsuit), Ken Starr, the 2000 election fraud........why would any thinking, breathing, feeling person WANT to be a republican????

[argyl]

36. When Nixon became president.He was also the only president I saw in

person (in 1970) until I saw Smirk in 2002.Both in off presidential election year fundraisers.Actually,I only saw Smirk's limo in a motorcade,complete with a SS agent hanging out the window,submachine gun in hand,looking as if he'd love to spray us as we stood in our "Free Speech" zone.

Nixon was actually in Market Hall and my long haired self was allowed entrance without signing a loyalty oath so I actually saw him.A number of other protesters were there as well,so,unsavory as Nixon was he still had the guts to face protesters.

As much as I despised Nixon at the time, he was head and shoulders above the current moron.Dislike his policies or not,there was no doubt that he was in fact the one in charge.

[Ladyhawk]

37. Late-hater, here.

I was raised a Christian fundamentalist right-winger. It's taken 37 years to rid myself of the brainwashing. The first step was to get rid of religious dogma, which allowed me to think for myself. After that happened, I was no longer a rabid Republican, but a "RINO" who pretty much thought politics was completely corrupted. (I still think that way to an extent.)

What put me over the edge: the current Iraq War. Somehow I noticed that the media became a bullhorn for the White House. I started doing research and did a complete 180 on the "War on Terror." One of the reasons I hate Bush* so much is that he fooled me. I wasn't paying attention and the blasted Rethugs fooled me!!! You know it's one of the stages of accepting loss: 1) Denial (where ho-hum Bush voters are now), 2) Anger (this is totally me), 3) depression (ack, me too) 4), bargaining (I don't bargain with fascists, sorry) 5) acceptance (I don't think I'll ever "accept" this.)

The "conservative" party never was "all that," but it stopped being conservative and started being fascist. There are still some issues on which I espouse a "conservative" view, but certainly not a fascist view. I have mixed feelings about abortion, but I don't want the GOP to outlaw it because they have no concern for either the mother, or the child when it is born. It's just a wedge issue for them. They have no morals.

[The Flaming Red Head]

38. They held up "don't feed the animals" posters on the floor of the house

of reps during the contract on America period. I think it was Florida and Wyoming and another state maybe Tennessee? They used the analogy of not feeding wild animals in the parks (because they'll only come back for more and not try to feed themselves etc) for why we shouldn't feed children of the poor.

But that's just one reason why I hate them. I could go on and on.