Although I have always supported Civil Rights and have taken pro-environment stances on issues, my political beginnings were in the Republican Party. Why? Because I also believed that capitalism represented the best of the systems which humankind had devised to deal with the distribution of wealth. I also strongly believed in living within one's means. I was against deficit spending. I believed in lower taxes - in people being able to keep more of their money and to spend it as they saw fit. I believed in limited government. I believed in the principle of free trade, and a strong military in dealing with our friends and foes around the world. I believed strongly in the First and Second Amendments to the United States Constitution, and I was strongly pro-life (anti-abortion). Finally, above all, I was very patriotic (even serving as a soldier in the United States Army).
My political heroes were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. I supported Ronald Reagan and both Bushes for president. Moreover, I was strongly against Bill Clinton and firmly believed that he had disgraced the office he held. In short, I was a registered Republican with a solid record of support for my party, and there was never any thought that I would ever be anything other than a loyal supporter of the GOP.
Over time, however, my party began to evolve into something which I no longer recognized. I remembered that Ronald Reagan, who had been a Democrat at one time, explained his switch to the Republican Party by claiming that it wasn't so much that he had left his old party - that it was more accurate to say that they'd left him. Republicans became more and more overtly anti-environment, anti-immigrant and less committed to the economic notions which had defined them for half a century. Over time, Republican policies had led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of an elite slice of the American population. I also noticed that Republican support for working with our friends and allies within the frameworks of the United Nations and NATO had deteriorated over time. And, by the time that Ronald Reagan had left office, Republicans had welcomed with open arms the old white Southern racist Democrats into their ranks.
Hence, although I had always admired John McCain as a true patriot and independent thinker, by the time that Barack Obama came along, I found that I was willing to entertain the possibility that I would vote for a Democrat for president. At first, I wasn't willing to abandon the label of Republican. I told myself that the Republican Party would eventually return to its roots and the core principles which had motivated its policies for so many years. Unfortunately, that never happened.
Instead, Republicans became less tolerant of their opponents on the other side of the aisle. Democrats weren't just advocating bad policies - they were baby killing demons. Democrats were unpatriotic. They were the enemy! It was no longer a matter of an honest difference of opinion about when life began and the moral implications of the decision to terminate a pregnancy - anyone who supported abortion rights was a minion of Satan! I also noticed that Republicans only opposed government spending when it was for things they didn't like - they liked to spend money just as much as Democrats did! The only difference was that Republicans had different priorities for their spending.
Finally, after the partisanship and obstructionism on full display during the first four years of the Obama Administration, I decided that I could no longer in good conscience remain a member of the Republican Party. I made the decision to become an independent voter. Even so, the thought of becoming a Democrat never crossed my mind.
And then Donald Trump threw his hat into the ring on the Republican side. I instantly knew that this man's character, temperament and experiences made him ill-suited to be the standard bearer of the Republican Party - let alone President of the United States. He was not a conservative in the traditional sense, and he was clearly not anchored to any strong moral or democratic principles which I could discern. As the CEO of a large business, he was used to getting his own way and crushing anyone who got in his way. In other words, he was NOT good leadership material for a democratic republic which demanded compromise and conciliation.
For four years, I was appalled by the support of other Republicans for Trump's policies and outrageous behavior. How could these folks support his trade policies? How could these folks support his deficit spending? How could these folks support or deliberately overlook his outrageous and unpresidential behavior? It became clearer and clearer to me that my old party had devolved into a cult of personality surrounding this dangerous man - that my old party was firmly in the grips of Donald Trump. In fact, they didn't even bother to adopt a platform in 2020! If all of that wasn't enough, most Republicans embraced Trump's lies about winning the 2020 election, and many of them supported his efforts to overturn the results!
The final straw for me was what happened on January 6. The Trump mob's attack on the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. was outrageous and clarifying. Trump had clearly incited the mob, and the vast majority of Republicans appeared to be OK with what had happened. It was now apparent to me that there was much more at stake here than mere policy differences. There was now only one party that stood for small "d" democracy, and that was the Democratic Party. For me, there was only one possible course to pursue - In January of 2021, I became a Democrat!
