I think that having grown up in former communist workers’ paradise of Bulgaria, my parents came to this great land with Ronald Reagan as one of their biggest heroes. Along the way, I think they became disenchanted with the Republican party for various reasons, and turned to the alternative. The alternative, as I read more and more Russian history, seems far too similar to what we(primarily they) escaped from. Offering a man a dollar with one hand while taking three from his pocket, forcing people to pay for new homes for disadvantaged, inner-forest squirrels and other such valuable social works programs, and little by little stripping the individual down to their very core, making them feel dirty, selfish, and sub-human for not “doing what is best for the common good” while amorphously altering the definition of “common good.” It all seems like the same boat.