The Broken Road to Freedom
A disillusioned Texan drives the ghostly stretches of Route 66 en route to Vegas, hunting for the America both parties keep promising—and discovering something freer in the desert darkness.
I was driving towards the abandoned Route 66 in the middle of December. It was a holiday road trip to Vegas. Everything was a bit of a blur. I crossed out of Texas, making my way through the desert landscape, looking for what it meant to be part of something great. I love this country, but does it love people like me anymore? I wanted to find out for myself. My beloved home state of Texas just wasn’t doing it anymore. Our big state with big dreams and ideas had become too small. Our once‑loyal and trusted GOP had become exactly what Newt Gingrich wanted—a turmoil‑filled, broken mess. They had broken us as a party, but they had not broken me. I will die before I let that happen.
It was out in the middle of nowhere. My eyes were bright and wide‑open, searching the dark and empty landscape for UFOs. The only alien I had seen thus far was the creature back at the Allsup’s gas station in Lamesa working the counter. Well, I don’t know if she was an alien, but she didn’t look like the picture of America that the internet and Republicans had sold me on. I was searching for this stupid picture that they swore existed on paper and cable news. So far I haven’t found it.
But, keeping my eyes glued open, I was also looking for the version of America that the leftists claim is alive and true. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s an America full of transvestites, good‑book‑burning mental slaves to an idea—the people who are scared of a gun and assigned genitalia in equal parts. I didn’t find any of them either. I hear about it on Twitter—or X—every day. People are screaming about their rights too and how every weird thing in the world deserves some sort of equal protection. They aren’t wrong, but where do we draw the line with this weirdness?
This version of America that the Democrats and Republicans were selling had to be visible somewhere, and Vegas is where I was going to find it. It is a mixed bag of pot‑mind‑numbed robots screwing maggot‑filled holes. I knew what I was getting into, and I had been here before. Vegas is the sort of place where all of it sort of comes together and works perfectly well. This is where I needed to be—somewhere that distances itself from the noise of the political circus but is somehow still the very center of it.
Modern‑day America is a rage‑filled septic tank full of disgusting turds. They come from the bowels of our society. You have people who aren’t totally sure who or what they are running this show. The way I see it, the bros and trannies share more in common than they have that is different. The only thing that separates them is their ideology.
The left‑wingers are very insecure people. They wear weird‑colored hair and cover themselves in the word “PRIDE.” I’m not sure they would actually know what the word means if you spelled it out to them. They talk about everyone having rights, and I agree with them 100%. But the real challenge is that they have no clue what equal rights even are. They have become the disgusting vomit that comes after a hangover. But if the left‑wingers are the vomit, the right‑wingers are the disgusting, horrible taste that is left behind.
Their breed of hatred for everything good in the world lingers like that bitter taste that spewed its way up from my gut. It is the gritty residue left on my teeth after I puke. The good thing about that is I can grab a tube of fluoride‑fused toothpaste and my five‑year‑old toothbrush and get rid of it. The GOP messaging line—I’m stuck with it. It is a sickness in the gut and the mind that lingers without a cure. Sounds almost like COVID.
But the bros and red‑beards rush to the alternative movement because one or two things sound “right” with it. They cling to Joe Rogan and Theo Von like redneck, bro‑acting gurus. They wear their weird‑looking skull shirts and brand their blue‑striped flags on everything from their ass‑cheek to the truck window. They are insecure and lost in their own minds, just like the leftists. They are weak, confused, insecure, and looking for the same acceptance that the left‑wingers are pushing. The only difference is where and who they slide into, if you know what I mean. Insecurity breeds fanaticism. That is not America.
I was passing through the weird‑ass town of Roswell. It was dark, and we stopped for gas. Actually, we were looking for a hotel, but everything was taken up for the night. We were left with only one option: drive the next couple of hours through the darkened roads of Eastern New Mexico toward Interstate 40. I wasn’t totally feeling it, but it had to be done, and after eight hours on the road dodging the speed‑revenue men of Texas, I needed a quiet break. This would be it.
I got behind the wheel and started heading northeast out of Roswell on Highway 285. Somewhere out here, I think, is where they had that UFO crash years ago. All I could hear in the back of my mind was Art Bell telling me to keep searching for answers. He never found any, and I don’t think I ever will either. But as the darkness faded, I realized that with every passing mile there were people driving insanely sane. They were not running me off the road, slamming on their brakes to avoid the speed cop, or swerving to dodge potholes big enough to hide a body in. New Mexico was right next door to Texas, but it seemed like a planet away.
In New Mexico, they had this thing called personal freedom and liberty. How could a moderately left‑wing state be so free? I thought left‑wingers believed in total social domination and thought control. Wait—that’s my beloved Republican Party that believes in all of that. Just give us our guns and our Bible, and we are good, right? That’s all we need to be free—guns and a good book. Well, maybe a good woman who likes a red beard and is insecure about herself and needs a man to depend on for her every thought and move. That’s what we like.
Women in the GOP have their own minds, their own opinions, and the freedom to be strong and self‑governing. They can make their own choices—well, the choices we give them to choose from. You see, independent women were never a real thing, and they still are not. Our women are still thought‑ and money‑controlled, and that is how we dominate them. As Republicans, we don’t like strong women. We want our women to submit because that is what it says in the Good Book. But in left‑wing states, women can think for themselves. That is a dangerous thing, right Donald? Right Kenneth? Right Dave? Am I right, Ted?
But out here in the empty, dark, black desert of New Mexico, we are all equal. If I broke down here, I might have to depend on one of the pot‑smoking, gun‑toting, Native‑American, toke‑wearing hippies to save me. The terror was running through my mind. If I had an accident down here, would my life be in good hands with a person who believes in spiritual awakening that is not found in a Bible or church bulletin? My life was in the hands of the crazy “Westerners” now. Would they be sober‑minded enough to even offer help? Pot is legal here, and they tell me back home that pot is the stuff of Satan and it degrades brain cells. I guess I’m living proof, because I have smoked enough of it in my life to be a poster child for clinical drug abuse.
We found a roadside motel in Moriarty, New Mexico. It was the perfect place to spend the night—flipped‑over tractor‑trailer rigs in the back lot, cigarette or joint holes burned into the comforter, and run by a Hindu family who only knew a few words of English. The place smelled like cheap cleaners and curry powder. The perfect place to end a long day.
I jumped in the shower and watched the piss blend with the local water running down the drain. I was in a leftist‑governed state. Was this water safe for me to use? The paranoia covered me with fear—there was more fear on me than soap. I pissed myself again. Somehow the fear was mixing with the need for sleep.
As I stood there in the shower, spitting juice from a fresh dip of snuff onto the floor, it occurred to me that I had not seen a state trooper the entire time I’d been in New Mexico over the holiday weekend. I had not noticed cars flipped over in the ditch or stoned‑out people mumbling endlessly down the highway. Okay, there might have been this one back in Vaughn, but I think he was a hobo waiting for a train or something. Regardless, it felt free here. I felt free here. I felt comfortable. This is not the America that the media and the parties tell me exists.
I woke up the next morning and went out with my wife while she had a smoke. It was colder than Hell. An empty gas station sat on the corner. Decaying signage was everywhere. Trucks were jamming the Travel Center parking lot across the street. Had Democrats caused all of this? I imagined how every decision they had made was a wrong one, and they must have been responsible for all of this decay.
But then it hit me. They call Interstate 40 the “Eisenhower Interstate System.” Good ol’ Ike was a Republican. He helped kill Route 66. I thought about how Reagan‑era policies killed our families while bolstering national pride and selling us out to the Iran‑Contra crowd. I thought about how Clinton‑era budget cuts killed vital government jobs and how Bush‑era wars killed families and decayed the minds that came home thinking everyone who disagrees with them is some sort of enemy from within.
I thought of the rage and hate in America. But I was on a journey to prove that it didn’t exist. Stay tuned, because I haven’t even made it to Albuquerque yet. There’s more to come.