Why the Republican Party Lost My Vote
I used to be a Republican.
Well, I consistently voted Republican. I never officially joined the Republican Party. There were one or two votes for another party, but the majority of my votes were for Republicans. Before I was able to vote, I supported Republicans, as did my family. In fourth grade we did a project showing which presidential candidate we supported. We made a booklet with newspaper clippings talking about the candidate we supported. Mine had a big “N” in red white and blue on the cover, showing anyone who looked at it that I supported Nixon.
I didn’t really follow politics. I couldn’t tell you what issues any candidate ran on. I supported Ford because he went to the University of Michigan. (I’m originally from Ann Arbor, MI.) Reagan was charming and had a quality that Carter didn’t have. I supported the Democratic candidate for governor when I was in high school because he was from the town I lived in and one of his daughters was in my high school class.
About all I knew about the Republican Party was that they were pro-business which was good for America (or so I was led to believe.) My parents voted Republican and that was good for me.
I voted to re-elect Reagan and I voted to elect GHW Bush, along with Republican senators, representatives, and state officials. Then I started noticing the world around me. Things weren’t getting better. A store that had been in business for 75 years went out of business. This store was an institution in the area. If you couldn’t find what you were looking for anywhere else, you went there and they probably had it. They had everything for Girl and Boy Scouts. They went out of business. So did several other large stores and other businesses that had been around for decades. Nationwide, things were the same. The wealth that Reagan assured us would “trickle down” didn’t, and people were beginning to feel pinched.
On top of that, the Republican Party was moving to the right at an alarming rate. Instead of working with the Democrats to do what was best for the country as a whole, they started working for what was best only for themselves. They began their “win at all costs” campaign, which has worsened as time went by.
I voted for Clinton and Democratic candidates in 1992 and have never looked back. When I moved to Michigan I voted for the Republican representative who was a moderate Republican, and did his best to represent the people in his district. Unfortunately the Republican Party didn’t think he was politically right enough, so they ran a far right candidate against him and got rid of him.
From holding Senate hearings about a president getting blow jobs from someone who wasn’t his wife, to endless hearings about an attack on a US Embassy that didn’t find any criminal actions by the Democratic administration, to blocking every piece of legislation put forth by the Democratic party, the Republican Party has become nothing more than a bunch of power hungry thugs.
They don’t want to govern, and they certainly don’t want to improve the United States. They want power.
They talk about actions having consequences, but only for Democrats. When one of their own does something unethical, they ignore it. When one of their own does something criminal (like sleeping with minors or inciting insurrection,) they rally around that person and gaslight the entire country into believing we didn’t really see what we saw.
They gerrymander districts so Republicans win seats even though more people vote for Democratic candidates. They purge voting rolls of black and minority voters. They pass laws making it harder for people to vote. They close polling places in urban areas. They close places where a person can get ID required to vote.
They do everything they can to win elections without changing increasingly unpopular positions and adapting to a new world.
In the early 1970s the Republican Party worked with the Democrats to get Nixon out of office. They knew Nixon did wrong and they cared that he sullied the reputation of the Republican Party. They knew there would be consequences for supporting Nixon.
Today’s Republican Party doesn’t care. They support crazy conspiracy theorists. They support pedophiles. They support criminals. They support insurrectionists. They support anyone who is a Republican and is willing to toe the party line. Those few Republicans who have said “Wait a minute. This is wrong,” get run out of the party.
The party has sold its soul to the Devil
I look at the Republican Party and don’t see any way I can vote for that party anymore.