How many friends did I just lose after posting this blog entry? How many relatives will no longer talk to me anymore after posting this blog entry? How many fewer Facebook friends will I have after this pic of Bernie Sanders (and not Hillary Clinton) shows up on my Facebook wall in the link preview to this blog?

Republicans can scream at me all they want, it just won’t get me to change my opinion.

But here’s the thing … As you see this Bernie Sanders picture and let it soak in that this is the guy I voted for in the Illinois Primary, I do not have any ill-will toward those who vote the other way, be it Clinton, Kasich, Cruz, or Trump. My vote for Bernie Sanders doesn’t mean I despise those who are Trump supporters.

I’m not anti-Trump, or anti-Cruz. I’ll let you have you’re opinion, and let me have mine. I’ll go ahead and let you vote for Trump, but while I do that, please go ahead and let me vote for Bernie without slapping a picture of Ronald Reagan against my face. You won’t see me wielding a hammer and sickle, either.

Overall, I just feel that America has become too busy trying to be a world power that we need a lot of fixing on the domestic front.

Acceptance of D.C. politics is at its worst. America is more partisan than ever, and on one of the sides, there is a third crack between the Republican “establishment” and a newer wave of thinking. Today, each of the five candidates have glaring positives, but glaring negatives.

Bernie Sanders – socialist – Russia – enemy

Hillary Clinton – Benghazi

John Kasich – Who?

Ted Cruz – annoying priest

Donald Trump – no political experience, dislikes many people

Sanders is convincing to me because of this really obvious reason … He presents facts, figures, has plans to go through with them, and offers explanations. “If I am president …” is something that I look at. I enjoy candidates that offer a lot of explanations of their plans. In other words, a candidate that actually presents something.

And that is also why I admire Trump’s campaign. Like Sanders, Trump has plans, presents facts, figures, and offers explanations. Some of the off-the-cuff comments are a little harsh, but in this instance, he is doing a lot more to appeal to people than both Ted Cruz (“I’m not Donald Trump”) and Hillary Clinton (“My last name is Clinton”).

Trump does a lot of right things, and a lot of wrong things; but that’s better than Cruz, who I feel isn’t doing anything to earn my vote.

I’ll end this really bad political blog entry (and this is why I don’t write about it) by touching on Bernie’s political ideology.

Sanders is a Democratic Socialist.

The word “socialist” is a scary one, especially after the Berlin Blockade, Arms Race, Space Race, and a spoken-word LP by Ronald Reagan about the dangers of socialized medicine.

The word “socialist” is synonymous with the Soviet Union – a country that once had missiles pointed toward us. By the 1980s, America began to see just how rough the Soviets had it in life – even its best hockey players fled to the NHL – and we vowed to not ever live in conditions like that EVER.

By 1991, the USSR was dissolved, and all of Europe was rid of Communism. That was 25 years ago.

If you’re 25 or younger, you have no first-hand idea about the “threat” of Soviet Russia. Anything that scares you about Soviet Russia was either passed down to you by the way your parents had to deal with it, or by reading old textbooks from that era.

When Hillary Clinton won the Illinois Primary last week by a narrow margin over Sanders, I noticed that three counties saw Sanders earn at least 60 percent of the vote: DeKalb, McLean and Champaign. DeKalb (65.4% Sanders) is home to NIU, McLean (60.2%) home to Illinois State (and Illinois Wesleyan and other small college), and Champaign (65.1%) home to the University of Illinois.

Jackson County, home to Southern Illinois University, narrowly missed the 60-percent threshold. Coles County (EIU) was 59% Sanders, McDonough County (WIU) was 57.8% Sanders, Madison County (SIU at Edwardsville) was 54.5% Sanders, and Sangamon (UofI at Springfield – our capitol) was 52.3% Sanders.