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Farewell, GOP
I joined the GOP when I turned 18, just weeks after Ronald Reagan’s re-election. Since I was unable to vote in that race, I accompanied one of my conservative friends to the polling place as a kind of silent vote. I had become a big Reagan fan in high school and began learning more about conservatism through Goldwater, various books on the Cold War, and National Review. (That made me quite the hit with the ladies, as you might imagine.)
These early studies of policy, patriotism, and civic virtue led me to enlist in the US Navy and, once I got to college, challenge my ex-hippie professors. For years I voted along party lines, donated to Republican candidates, and volunteered for their campaigns. I was proud to belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, and, of course, Ronaldus Magnus. Even when Bush Sr. raised taxes, some GOP congressman floated bizarre conspiracy theories about Clinton, and Tom DeLay’s House spent us into oblivion, I still identified with the party’s higher ideals. Limited government. Peace through strength. Personal freedom.
Nominees like Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney were all way down on my list of preferred primary candidates. (Both Bushes were as well, come to think of it.) But considering the odious Democrats running against them, I voted for the half-a-loaf GOP standard bearer.
But today, after an acrimonious intraparty trench war, I see the GOP as defined less by Reagan and more by Trump. Obviously, a large number of his voters agree. I don’t need to bore you with a catalog of Trump’s personal and policy failures. What’s most distasteful is his contempt for the history and underlying structures of our republic. Ignoring the Constitution while promising easy fixes by a strongman. The majoritarian rule of the “democratic” mob. The base appeals to tribalism.
So the night of the Indiana primary, when Ted Cruz suspended his campaign and Trump’s nomination gained nearly unstoppable momentum, I wondered if the GOP represented me any longer. I obviously was out-of-step with the plurality of its voters and directly opposed to the party’s new leader. I considered waiting until Trump’s nomination was official at the convention, but figured that would merely add two months to the grieving process. Why draw out the disappointment when I could just pull off the Band-Aid and get it over with?
One person changing his party affiliation will make few if any waves among the cubicles at the RNC. But if thousands made a similar decision, I figured it would send a message to Reince Priebus, et al. Maybe over the next month, we’ll see how the party rolls changed.
So, as of Tuesday, May 3, I am an independent voter. I no longer feel the need to champion the GOP’s myriad flawed candidates or spin their horrible decisions once elected. And, although it was rather sad to leave the party of my youth, it’s liberating not to be burdened with their metric ton of bad decisions.
Has anyone else here left the GOP and, if so, why?
Published in Politics
I’m a Democrat out of sheer momentum, and an independent in all but name; I’m a DINO. I’m exhausted with the Obama administration and I could have voted for almost any Republican over Hillary Clinton.
Almost.
Throughout the 21st century I’ve voted Republican for president: Bush in 2004, McCain in 2008, Romney in 2012.
Trump is repugnant; in the hierarchy of needs, keeping him out of the White House is my first priority. Electing a good president comes in a distant second. Like P.J. O’Rourke, I view Hillary Clinton as the second-worst thing that could happen to the country. She is awful, but awful within normal parameters; Trump appears to be pathological, lying about other candidates without purpose, and changing his positions day by day. He’s erratic and seems to have no shame about his own ignorance of how things like the national debt and NATO work.
I’ll vote for a third-party candidate unless the race in California is close, in which case I’ll vote for Clinton. It’s so dispiriting that it’s come to this.
Rick Perry was right the first time: Trump is a cancer on the Republican Party; now he’s a cancer on the nation. Republican office-holders who back Trump need to be primaried and purged. This is a test for the conservative movement, just as chasing the John Birchers out was a test for William F. Buckley’s generation. If the Republican Party wants to be the party of zero-sum economic nationalism and populist economics, the Republican Party needs to be sent to rest in the same boneyard where Ross Perot’s “Reform” Party was interred 20 years ago.
I am proud to stand with #NeverTrump and let history be my judge.
Through the years I have made modest contributions to the Republican Party. It seemed that a large part of my contribution was spend on mail soliciting additional donations from me so I decided to donate in reverse. Several times I have sent a $10.00 donation to the Democrat Party and received many times over that amount in unsolicited mail. Also gives me an opportunity to read some of the tripe they send their supporters further reinforcing my commitment to never vote for another democrat. Trump may be an arrogant, egotistical jerk but even that is preferable to Hilliary. Having voted for Perot and help elect Bill Clinton, I will not make the third party mistake again. We have to think Supreme Court appointments here.
Jon – welcome to the dark side.
Dare I wait for the “Why am I an anarchist” post? I girl can dream.
You could, but the post probably wouldn’t be CoC-compliant.
I have no problem voting against my interests if it’s the right thing to do. I think everyone should do the same.
The left is offended when you benefit from their programs, but didn’t let that assistance buy your vote. (You could ask Clarence Thomas if you don’t believe me.) Too bad. When they paid my salary they didn’t buy my vote, too.
Just because I liked this doesn’t mean I’m going to follow your advice.
My relationship with the party was a few years longer than yours, and I’ve been kicking myself for not leaving it in 2012 when I first seriously considered it.
While talking to a mutual friend of ours yesterday we were lamenting the fact that there is no serious discussion about limiting the size of government anywhere in the upper echelons of the GOP. None of them have the guts to counter the garbage “You hate poor people!” spin that the Dems float whenever it’s suggested that the federal behemoth be reined in at all. Some governors are trying, then there’s John Kasich. The last high ranking elected Republican official to even comfortably discuss it is now a free-wheeling Libertarian who’s more known for his support of legalized weed than his budget slashing prowess when he was a governor.
The loss of focus, desire and will on this issue probably sowed more seeds of discontent among the party faithful than any other. We may all just be getting around to officially leaving, but the party’s bureaucracy fetish has been pushing us out of the door for years.
After almost three and a half decades of activism, I’m tired of trying to change the party from within, mostly because it has no interest whatsoever in changing.
I will reiterate that the Republican Party has always been, and needs to be, the home centralized around the “somewhat conservative”, as described by Henry Olsen. Ted Cruz just proved- again- what is proven in every primary season.
The “doctrinaire conservative” makes up at most 25% of Republican primary voters, about as many as the “moderate” group. GHW Bush was a moderate as was McCain, GW Bush was a “somewhat conservative”. Marco Rubio is actually almost a doctrinaire conservative, except that, like Mike Lee and Ronald Reagan (and, actually, Paul Ryan), he is able to personally present himself in a manner acceptable to the “somewhat conservative” and “moderate” cohorts.
We will never win until we are perceived as caring more about people than about ledgers and calculators.
I don’t feel as if I’ve left the Republican party so much as it left me — high and dry. I’m a conservative, first and foremost, so I guess I’m a woman without a party now. But I will vote in November, and either leave the president oval undarkened or write in someone. I will vote Republican down the rest of the ballot, as the local Republicans running here are a good bunch and none of them violate any of my core principles.
We will never win until we are perceived as caring more about people than about ledgers and calculators.
We will never win because many people define “caring” as “give me free stuff”. And, frankly, conservatives are the adult in the room who says to brush your teeth, eat right, get enough sleep, pay your bills on time, and don’t spend more than you make. People would rather party on. Trump says that we can make America great again without having to do anything except punish Mexico and China. Hillary says that we can create a just world by punishing big corporations and Wall Street. Conservatives say that our problems are complex, not easily fixed, and require the hard work of thinking through what policies will best address those complex problems. Is it any wonder that people want an easy slogan rather than details? What matters is what will actually help the country, and I’m afraid most people will choose easy slogans over anything requiring more.
I filled this out the day after the Indiana primary. Goodbye and good riddance, Republican Party. Donald Trump is an embarrassment that you will have to own forever. I won’t have any part of it.
Pompous virtue signaling click bait. Ryanesque.
Hey, it’s LIFO and tag you’re it:
I get the goodbye and good riddance part. What I don’t get–and here I’m picking on you because and only because yours was the last post when I started typing–what I don’t get is why you and so many others are terminally embarrassed by Trump and didn’t have “the vapors” over any or all of the Republicans and the post election (or defeat) behavior during the past oh say 21-16 years? Just askin’……
Because being lied to over and over is fine, and forgivable, if the politician is “respectable”. It’s like the lies somehow don’t count. But if the politician embarrasses you, oh, we simply can’t have that. That’s beyond the pale.
Lie to us, screw us over, promise things that you’ll never ever deliver. We’re fine with that. But just don’t embarrasses us.
Where have you been? A a lot of classic republican voters have been complaining about the party for years. I noted above that I changed my party affiliation a number of years ago (late in the GWB administration). And my McCain vote was a low water mark for me, and I quite literally had to be talked into it by republican friends as an antidote to Obama – and I still feel frustrated about it. But Trump is just too much to ask, he is big-government, authoritarian, vulgar, petty, vindictive, and an ignoramus. He’s not going to cut spending, he’ll raise taxes, he’s open to single payer heathcare, etc. And I have no expectation that he’ll do much of anything meaningful about illegal immigration – he’s just saying what he needs to say to win. He was a terrible miscalcuation on the part of frustrated voters.
“Sometimes party loyalty asks too much” – John F Kennedy
Good observation.
I’m not voting for Trump. But I can’t get on the #nevertrump bandwagon like some people do, precisely because it would mean being like this.
I should also point out that the Ricochet CofC contains some elements of this. Don’t say things that would embarrass us. It shows a lack of character in the forces behind Ricochet. Unfortunately, you can find lack of character everywhere, and you just have to learn to live with people who are that way.
Yup. I wrote to Senator Cruz and Governor Abbott with that message.
Good. Then DJT is just the man for you.
Yes, agreed, I’m no longer a Republican either. The only way I’ll be able to watch the convention is as a non-member. And in that capacity I’m actually looking forward to the summer B-movie-grade entertainment. It is sure to further solidify my decision. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’ll be so great! People tell me that all the time, it’ll be tree-mendous!
Now, if only there was a way to separate from Trump supporters who surround me on all sides (living as I do in Alabama), but also on both sides of our family – people scattered throughout the midwest. It is truly disheartening.
May I ask, Jon Gabriel: how did you make it official with the RNC?
What I find most hilarious are all of the assertions beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump has actually done anything to ignore the Constitution or destroy “the underlying structures of our republic”. All he has done is run a campaign. And all he did was say things that are consistent with what Republicans of all stripes have been actually doing, just with an admittedly classless and boorish approach. Every single president runs a campaign claiming to do things that he cannot unilaterally do, with the knowledge that what he means is to get Congress to take certain actions.
Especially when the last Republican president nationalized the banks without Congressional authority and waterboarded terrorists and spied on US citizens and you name it.
Jon -I don’t seem to remember you burning your party card then.
Did I miss that?
Amazing what fear can do to an otherwise reasonable mind. I posit that the rejection of Trump is not so much a rejection of his proposed policies per se, but rather a sense of loss that accompanies an understanding that a “true” movement conservative is not going to happen, tied with Trump’s rather boorish behavior.
This post is linked at Hot Air, so lets everyone be on their best behavior! (This is one of those times I wish Ricochet had “smileys”.)
Voting in presidential elections always comes down to the character of the person running, more than is true in any other race in America.
I, like many voters right now, am very uncomfortable with Trump as president. I wouldn’t care what he said he would do.
This exchange between Donald Trump and Chris Cuomo is just plain bizarre:
I’ve seen too much of this sick self-worship in disastrous world leaders. I don’t have a name for it, but I know it when I see it.
Just like McCain, McConnell, the Bushes and any number of people who were supported by many of those making a show of leaving the GOP now.
I’ve voted in (I think) five presidential primaries before this one, and only once did my favorite candidate come out on top. I am usually disappointed in the outcome of the primary, and I am often disappointed in our party leaders once they reach office. But most of them have at least been decent, reasonable people, right-of-center, fighting for some policies and ideas that I care about.
Trump is a whole different animal. He’s an inconsistent, unprincipled, incoherent, crude, mean, philandering, opportunistic demagogue who will, I think, do tremendous damage to the party of Lincoln. You may disagree with some or all of that description, but no honest person can deny that he represents something new on the political stage. Is it really so strange that some of us would react differently to his nomination than we have to candidates in the past?
Of course not. When it comes to Trump’s supporters, I suspect that he has just given lip-service to some pet issue or bugaboo of theirs, and they are willing to overlook everything else because of it.
On the contemporary stage, perhaps. But on the historical stage, he’s as American as apple pie.
Same here. In fact I only just switched to GOP here in CA days before Indiana so I could vote in the GOP primary as it is a closed one. My default status is NPP and only changes so I can vote in the party primaries. It disgusts me when I do and I so look forward to washing my hands once again of this despicable organization.
The Dems and the GOP are like the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals. They switch roles every decade or so, but their goals are the same: To misdirect, play tricks, and entertain you as they take money from your wallets as they wreak havoc in a perfectly good team sport.
The only thing I disagree with is the “party of Lincoln” part. Hell, we’re not even the party of Ford. Perhaps a Pinto with an exploding gas tank. Well, and I disagree with the part about doing tremendous damage. The damage has already been done; that’s why all those other candidates are gone and Trump is still standing. The damage was done by all those elected Republicans who became poster-children for Public Choice Theory and failed to dance with the ones who brought them.
Bingo.
I guess you missed the whole Tea Party movement huh?
Trump is getting supported by a group of white nationalist and Neo-Nazis. David Duke on his podcast is calling himself a Republican, and talking about how great it is Trump is leading the way to defend “European nationalist” from “Jewish supremacist.”
Go over to Breitbart, and all you see in the comments is complaining about “Jews” “N-words” and “cucks”. The Alt-right and their candidate is scum, and most of us in the liberty movement will not be a part of it.