TATUM: How President Obama Turned Me Into A Proud Republican
Brandon Tatum
Contributor
I want to start out by truly thanking former President Obama for opening my eyes to the truth. If it had not been for Obama showing the true colors of the Democratic Party, I would still be in a hopeless, victim-bound position as a liberal, blindly voting for Democrats.
Like many Americans who grow up in the black community, it was ingrained in me to subconsciously believe that the Democratic Party was the party of black folks and the Republican party was the party of racist white people.
Let me explain a little more in detail about how bad the brainwashing was. My family wasn’t even political. I never remember even hearing about anyone close to me voting or mentioning voting or even discussing the importance of voting power. Yet every political in the community, happen to be a Democrat. Every time you turn on the television, the Democrat is explaining how he or she will turn the community around. All the black leaders were known for and even presumed to be Democrats.
I do, however, vividly remember my pastor in college — after Sunday service — telling all the brothers in church that if they did not know who to vote for, that they should just vote Democrat all the way down the ballot. I also remember a white guy who came to speak at one of our church functions. I thought he was cool. He happened to be a Democrat as well. So as one can imagine, the seed of being a Democrat was planted deep.
Obama changed it all. I remember voting when Obama got elected as the first black president of the United States of America. I remember watching his inaugural speech and crying tears of pride. I was so proud that it appeared our country had reached a milestone. Our country had made history. The shadow of racism and prejudice in our country had changed forever. My God, was I wrong.
I did not vote for Obama at the time, because I wasn’t shallow enough to vote for a man I honestly knew nothing about. That election was like the Final Four to me. I didn’t pay attention until election night. However, I made my mind up that I would be more involved in the next presidential election.
Like a typical ill-informed citizen, I decided this time I would not do exhaustive research as I should have, but instead, look at the debates between Obama and Romney. After looking at the debates, I honestly thought Obama outperformed him and had a much better point, plus I was still biased towards the Democrats.
I became a cop the year before Obama began his second term. All my buddies were conservatives — except for the handful of black people in the department. When I say handful I mean around 12. My conservative buddies would not let me live it down the fact that I was a Democrat. My friend Steve used to tell me nearly every time we spoke about politics that he could not understand how I was a Democrat given my Christian values and moral standing as a man. At the time I didn’t understand what he was saying, nor did I fully agree, but it was surely creating doubt in my mind.
And then Obama did the unthinkable. Obama started bashing police on a national scale and creating division within our country. It began with him claiming Trayvon Martin could have been his son. It was ridiculous. Then — jumping to an extreme conclusion without evidence — he spoke about the black Harvard professor wrongfully detained for breaking in his own house. Obama stated that the police acted “stupidly,” but he was wrong as hell. He also defended Mike Brown, the kid who was shot in Ferguson, Missouri. He even attended the kid’s funeral, despite the fact the Mike Brown attempted to kill a police officer.
The list goes on and on.
I began to see Obama as anti-American, anti-police, anti-Christian, and anti-everything I believe a great man with integrity should stand for. I noticed he gave money to Iran, oversaw “Fast and Furious,” and refused to even utter the words “Islamic terrorist.” I started to learn that the Democratic Party was the party of slavery, racism, Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan. I vowed to never return to the Democrats ever again.
When President Trump came along, I didn’t look back. Thank you, President Obama. You set me free.
Read more: https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/04/tatum-obama-republican/
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.