I let them get to me yesterday. I really did. Even though I prayed to God to help me hold my anger, even though I promised him I would, I let them get to me and I broke that promise.
Who? Larry Hogan and his groupies.
Why?
Some background. Almost eight years ago I and other Conservatives in Maryland had hope. We had a guy running for Governor who was a business man, a seemingly good man, and a Conservative. He promised lower state taxes, a state that didn’t over spend, help for retired police, firemen and teachers, and on and on. I voted for him and lo and behold, for the third time in my lifetime, my candidate for Governor won in Maryland! The first was Don Schaeffer, the second Bob Erlich, and then Hogan. I had such high hopes.
The things he promised didn’t happen immediately and I thought, ” Give him time.” After all, he had to work with a stubborn liberal legislature controlled by Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore Counties and City.
He got one thing done, he lowered tolls on bridges.
That was about it for his first term. But, at least he seemed like a good guy.
He got cancer and we all rallied around him. I even ran the Bridge run as one of his VIP’s. I was honored.
Towards the end of his first terms, I, like many others, began to question things. Why wasn’t he getting things done? Why didn’t he seem to fight very hard against Democrats? The second election came and he ran against a very bad, very weak Democrat.
Right before that second election, I was listening to Bruce Elliott on WCBM radio and a caller, an African American woman, called and was talking to Bruce. She was a Conservative. She basically told Bruce that Hogan wasn’t what Republicans and Conservatives thought he was. Bruce told her that he was at least better than a Democrat. She disagreed. She told him that we would find out what Hogan really was in his second term.
She was right. It began to dawn on many of us, bit by bit. At first it was just the continued lack of fight against Democrats in Annapolis. Then it progressed to the outright disdain for the Republican candidate for President, Trump. Larry wasn’t just non-committal about him, he was outright against him. There was never any reason given other than he didn’t like how Trump talked.
Then, in this year, who Larry Hogan is hit us, his supporters, like a ton of bricks. It was the initial two week “shutdown” for Covid 19 to “flatten the curve.” Then it was the continuation of this shut down and the mask mandate. All the while, most of us didn’t see the pandemic he claimed there was.
Then he started openly opposing the President. He even said he might run against him. He started showing up on CNN, etc. and he wrote a book. As the summer progressed, he amazingly wrote a self serving book praising his Covid response. ( And, by the way, how does someone write a book that quickly and get it published. Seems fishy.) I spoke to some of my friends who worked for the State of Maryland and they told me why he did these things. He wanted favor from the unions for his next political run.
He became the head of the Governor’s Association and began to sound more like Cuomo and Newsome. He started instituting the same Draconian measures they did, saying the same things they said. His mandates made no sense, favoring one business category over others. Allowing big box stores to stay open while small businesses couldn’t.
Money was promised for small businesses affected by Covid, but, when small businesses applied, the money was gone. It was rumored to have been given to the businesses of his friends and relatives. He sent his Korean wife to Korea to spend 9 million dollars of Maryland taxpayer money on Covid tests, only to discover that they were faulty. Then he spent an additional million to replace them. All the while there were companies here, in Maryland, that had better tests that were cheaper.
And when we, the citizens, wrote to him and complained, he dismissed us. He threatened us if we protested, while allowing Black Lives Matter to protest maskless in the streets of Baltimore. He allowed the removal of state statues. And he continued to insult our President, saying he would write in ” Ronald Reagan” before voting for him.
I wrote emails to him ten times. They were mild at first, merely asking for common sense. No response, not even an auto-response. I addressed him on his Facebook page and had my questions deleted. I guess I was lucky because he was downright rude and threatening to others.
And now, he tells us he is taking back the freedoms he “gave” us, the freedoms he had no right to take in the first place. He tells us NOT to celebrate Thanksgiving. He tells us not to visit relatives.
He tells our President to go golf, concede the election, and basically shut up about the vast fraud that is promising to make an idiot our President.
Who was this guy? This wasn’t who I thought I supported, who I voted for. This wasn’t a Conservative. It was a dictator, a man who either fooled us all brilliantly, was threatened or bought off. It was a petty little man with a thin skin who couldn’t fight for us and the principles we though he stood for.
He was, and is, a scam artist who has performed one of the greatest bait and switch schemes ever in politics. He is a liar, spreading false data about Covid 19. He is unapologetic, blaming the counties and us for the fact that positive tests seem to increasing.
And so yesterday I broke my promise to God and to myself. I lost it on this sham and his delusional, sycophantic followers. I told them, again, what I thought of him and them in no mild terms.
But that is what happens when you are told that a man is one thing and he turns out to be another, a really evil other.
I’m sorry that I broke my promise, not because I made people feel bad or that God would be angry. I think he might actually understand since his son was known to lose his temper a time or two for good reasons.
I’m sorry because it affected me last night as I tried to go to sleep. It kept me awake.
But, you know what? I won’t stop fighting with my thoughts and words. I won’t let this fake get away with his lies. But I also won’t let his evil control me. It won’t ruin my Thanksgiving with my family.
I won’t let this liar off the hook.
