My month of living Republicanly
For virtually all of my adult life, I have been a registered independent. But a month ago, I finally decided it was time to take a side. I became a Republican.
MAGA!
Well, no, not MAGA. The very opposite of MAGA, in fact.
I joined for the sole purpose of supporting Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the District of Columbia's Republican primary, held this past weekend.
My friend Ben suggested it. Pointing out that Trump finished a distant third in D.C. in 2016 to Marco Rubio and John Kasich, he argued that this might be the only primary Trump loses in 2024 — and we could be a part of it.
That's exactly how it played out. Haley dealt Trump his first defeat this weekend with 63 percent of the total in the D.C. GOP primary to Trump's 33 percent — and mine was one of the 1,274 votes she got. As Republicans in 15 states go to the polls in the Super Tuesday primaries, I can only hope that the timeless political maxim holds: As goes the District of Columbia, so goes the nation.
Voting in the D.C. GOP primary was easy. I just had to switch my party registration three weeks before the primary. But if I was going to register as a Republican, it was only right that I should start acting Republican. And so began my month of living Republicanly. I ate like a Republican, slept like a Republican, shopped like a Republican. I watched TV like a Republican and spent my leisure time like a Republican. And I rooted against Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, cheering instead for the 49ers and their Trumpy defensive end Nick Bosa.
Enjoying the novelty of my new affiliation, I began working in phrases such as “As the only Republican in the room…” This became a problem when I regaled some outof-town visitors with tales of my Republican exploits, only to discover, too late, that they were real Republicans and did not engage in such pursuits ironically.
Ben and I met on the morning of Jan. 29 at the D.C. Board of Elections offices near Nats Park in Southeast. Ben, styling himself a Chamber of Commerce Republican, wore a suit and a reddish tie for his conversion. I'm more of a Deplorable, so I opted for jeans and a T-shirt. The clerk gave us forms and clipboards, we filled in our details, and, a few minutes later, he returned and handed me my new voter registration card.
Reg. No.: 230075549 Party: REP
We posed for photos with our new cards in front of the elections office's U.S. and D.C. flags — then we celebrated our change in status with a very Republican meal: We went for an Original Chicken Sandwich and a milkshake at Chick-fil-A.
It remained to be seen whether I could rest easy as a Republican, and this is where Mike Lindell came in. The MyPillow founder is in a bad way, after his election lies led retailers to drop him and caused a $5 million arbitration award against him. I helped him out of arrears by purchasing a Mike Lindell Patriotic Roll & GoAnywhere Pillow & Case for $14.99 after 50 percent off for entering a promotional code for the “Sean Hannity Specials.” This appeared to have been identical to the discounts offered for the “Sebastian Gorka Specials,” the “Dan Bongino Specials” and the “Warroom Bannon Flash Sale.”
My pillow arrived 10 days later, as flimsy as Trump's legal arguments. The pillowcase features an image of Lindell holding a flag in his right hand and the Constitution in his left. It came with not one but two Bible-verse inserts and promotions for “Ashwagandha gummies,” “natural teeth whitener” and other things the election denier is now hawking to make ends meet. And I was sure to need my pillow after experiencing the free gift (“$20 value”) I also received: a download of Lindell's audiobook.
Well rested, I drove my gaspowered car out to Harrisonburg, Va., for the Showmasters Gun Show. I paid my $9, got a bull's eye hand stamp and plunged into the cavernous exhibit hall at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds. Here, I was definitely home among my fellow Republicans.
I perused booths selling knives, handguns, rifles, shotguns, wilderness survival kits, 25-year-shelf-life food, a couple of Republican candidates for Senate and a plan to call a constitutional convention. At one booth, operated by the