Home
Blog
Featured
Substack
Cookbook
RSS Feed
Donate
Other
Library
Links
Webring
Brandon Herrera is a gun youtuber, he puts out good stuff and I’ve been following him for years. But that’s not why I want to talk about him, he is running for congress, and that is much more interesting and important, and his reasoning for doing so is something we should all learn from.
More specifically Brandon is running as a Republican in Texas’ 23rd congressional district challenging Republican incumbent Tony Gonzales. This is interesting because traditionally it is uncommon for an incumbent to be challenged from within his own party and yet Brandon isn’t even the only Republican challenging Gonzales and he isn’t doing it for his own gain.
In the video Herrera put out just after announcing his run, he explained that Gonzales has failed his constituents by voting for gun control and against tighter border security. These are two issues very close to the people who voted for Gonzales and he voted against their interests despite having a sacred red R next to his name. Brandon Herrera is running for congress because he wants the people living in his district to have a representative who actually represents them rather than Washington.
The sad reality is that many Americans don’t have an actual representative in congress. Mitch McConnell is a perfect example of this. A few weeks ago a video of him speaking in his home state of Kentucky was making its way around because a good chunk of the crowd was chanting “Retire!” Of course the people chanting were mostly Democrat activists so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they were protesting the old Republican turtle but the interesting thing was that Republican voters weren’t mad, they agreed. I have a friend from Kentucky and it frustrates him that his state keeps electing McConnell. You shouldn’t have to be from Kentucky to understand that, Rand Paul is Kentucky’s other senator; these two men have entirely different agendas despite being from the same party, they can’t possibly both represent the average Kentucky voter.
Many might argue that Mitch McConnell is a product of our flawed two party system, and it is hard to argue against that. Herrera addressed the two party system in his video saying:
Lots of people … will complain about the two-party system, that Republicans and Democrats will just hand you a garbage candidate that you feel the need to support because you have no other alternative. That is only half true, the real truth is that you get to choose who those candidates are in the primary election and your vote and your efforts go a lot farther in that primary election because it’s so often overlooked.
I’d love it if someone like Thomas Massie would primary Mitch McConnell, and I feel like that sort of thing might start happening more often. People are getting tired of being ruled by rich men north of Richmond who don’t care about them, where is the Biden administration’s response to the fires in Hawaii? The fact that Trump won is proof that people are tired of the political establishment in this country as is the fact that Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy are both doing well in the polls. More people like Brandon Herrera need to jump in the fight and give us regular people a voice.
Now, the next thing I want to talk about regarding Brandon Herrera’s announcement is a bit less revolutionary but perhaps more important. Again he is running because he is unhappy with the way that is representative has been voting, this of course requires him to know who his representative is and how he is voting. Do you know those things? I’ll be honest, I can’t name either of my senators and I’m only 75% confident that I know who my congressman is and of course I have no idea how they are voting. These are things that I should be paying attention to, as should you, but I’m not and I bet you aren’t either. It is our job as voters to hold our representatives accountable but how are we supposed to do that if we don’t know who they are or what they are doing? How are we supposed to know if we need to vote for someone else in the primaries?
Of course there are still times when there might not be someone in running in the primary election that is any good. This happened to me in the last governor’s election in my state, I didn’t vote in the primaries because they all sucked. I of course voted in the general election and I’m glad the guy I voted for won and I don’t have any major complaints about him but I wish he was better than he is.
When people who actually have potential to enact good change come along and run for office it is important for us to support them. There is a part of me that is tempted to register as a Democrat just so I can vote for RFK Jr. in their primary election. Of course the establishment would never let him win but putting someone like him who puts the needs of the people over those of the elite at the head of that party would be great for the country. Of course there is another part of me who isn’t sure if I could live with myself if I registered as a Democrat so I’ll probably be voting in the Republican primary and while I am undecided on who to support there (since I have plenty of time to make that decision) the non-Trump candidate I’d be most likely to vote for is Vivek Ramaswamy simply because he is an outsider.
It is time we started taking power away from the people who have been misusing it. The internet has enabled us to see who those people are and we should use it to support people who won’t. Then if we don’t see anyone worthy stepping up to the plate we could consider running for office ourselves, I doubt I’ll ever do it but it isn’t something I’m unwilling to do if it becomes necessary. And in the case of Texas’ 23rd district, let’s go Brandon.