For as long as we have had political parties, we have been doused with political hogwash.

The latest fiction to light my fuse revolves around “party loyalty.”

Someone, somewhere, decided to pretend that anyone who was a Republican (or Democrat) last year has an ethical obligation to continue to be that Republican or Democrat this year.

If that is so, why is it legal to switch political parties?

It is legal, and easy. I know. I have done it for about the past decade.

This year, I did it again, via my computer. I looked at what was likely to be on the ballot in my neck of Penn’s Woods come our April 28 primary election.

Sensibly, Pennsylvania has no local races on the ballot in presidential election years. “Yes or no” ballot questions do creep on from time to time. But even the “district” elections are for state or federal office, not for county, or city/borough/township offices.

Republican incumbent President Donald Trump is unopposed. Incumbent Republican Rep. Glenn Thompson is unopposed for renomination. There is just one real contest, a race for the GOP nominee for state senate.

My own political party, the Libertarians, chooses its nominees by convention, not by primary election.

Ho-hum.

The Democrats had more than a dozen Presidential candidates early on, reminiscent of the bloated Republican field from back in 2016.

Not ho-hum.

Besides, I liked Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Amy Klobuchar, a senator from Minnesota. Heck, I get a kick out of curmudgeonly Bernie Sanders, perhaps because Bernie and I are the same age, and we are curmudgeons.

In my heart, I think Bernie, 78, is too old – but I am too old for that job, at 77. To me, that makes Biden, 77, and President Trump, 73, also too old. The younger candidates, Mayor Pete, 38, Amy Klobuchar, 59, and Elizabeth Warren, 70, are now out of the race. Tulsi Gabbard, 38, remains a candidate, but does not appeal to me.

But those are the choices. My primary election Presidential vote will be for a Democrat because I became a Democrat back in January.

I started out my voting career as a Democrat, after having shaken Jack Kennedy’s hand in 1960 in Erie while I was a collegian there.

That did not last long.

A year later, my mother told me that I would need to vote in that year’s Republican primary election in then heavily Republican Warren County, Pennsylvania.

“I can’t,” I said. “I registered as a Democrat.

She stopped moving. Her mouth tightened.

Mom was about as apolitical as one gets. But family was in her blood.

“Your cousin Sam is running for district attorney and he needs every vote,” she said. In those days, winning the Republican primary nomination in Warren County, Pa., guaranteed general election victory in November.

“Mom, I can’t. I just can’t. It’s a matter of principle!” I said, or something like that.

“Principle?” Mom retorted. “Principle? I’ll give you principle, young man!

“Who does your laundry when you dump it here and go out with your friends? Who sends you back to college with plenty of food for you and your roommates?”

Ah-yup.

Laundry and food trump principle every time.

I registered Republican, just as soon as I was able to do so.

And there is nothing wrong with switching parties — unless you are a political hack, or swallow their vote-buying baloney.

Back in 2008, I ended my half-century string of Republican voting to vote in the Democratic primary – against Hillary Clinton. Personally speaking, I wish Hillary a long life and a happy death. Politically speaking, I have detested her for decades.

After Barack Obama won that primary, I switched my party back to Republican, based primarily on state and local election considerations.

In 2012, I switched back to Democrat to vote against Hillary in the primary. After she and Trump won nominations, I switched to Libertarian and voted for Gary Johnson because he is not a pathological liar or a megalomaniac.

After this year’s April 28 primary, I will switch back to Libertarian.

“That is disloyal!” I am told.

Again, hogwash. Ronald Reagan, that paragon in the pantheon of Republican saints, started out as a Democrat.

Do you know who claims that voters must stay within this or that political party?

Political hacks claim that.

I am an American. I choose candidates and political party slates according to my own best judgment, not the judgment of political hacks.

Nobody could ever tell me what to do!

Except Mom, of course.

I can still smell the freshly ironed shirts and the oh-so-yummy pasta sauce. They are more persuasive than political party ideology.

¯¯¯

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.