I have been a Republican ever since I can remember having an interest in politics, around the time when I was in 5th grade, which happened to be around the time when al-Qaeda attacked America on September 11th. Throughout the years since, I have remained a Republican for various reasons. In my middle school years, I was a strong social conservative and supporter of President Bush’s War on Terrorism. In high school, I became more of a fiscal conservative and in college and grad school, I have been a social moderate, fiscal conservative, and somewhat of a moderate with regard to foreign policy and national security. The GOP has always been my ideological home.
But today, I am leaving the Republican Party. I may well join the Libertarian Party or I may simply remain a moderate conservative independent who is part of the anti-Trump resistance. But today, it became clear to me that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee because anti-Trump conservatives are incapable of working together to defeat him. In order to stop Trump, we must deny him the delegates in Florida and Ohio. Marco Rubio’s team told his supporters to vote for John Kasich in Ohio in order to make this happen. And how did the other sides respond? Kasich’s spokesperson sneered at this effort and Justin Amash, a functional Cruz surrogate, did likewise. Oh, and PACs associated with Cruz continue to try to hammer Rubio in his home state. Rubio is playing to stop Trump, Cruz and Kasich are playing for themselves. As such, Trump is going to win the nomination.
I cannot, in good conscience, be associated with the party of Trumpism. Trumpism represents the worst of American politics. It is a message of anger and no substance. It is a cult of personality behind a man who probably does not have a single political principle, but knows how to mimic the message his supporters want to hear. He is a talented entertainer and knows what his audience wants to hear. Scarier than Trump, however, are his supporters. They are angry at everything, especially people who are not white. They abandon reason and blindly support anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. They are, in essence, the mob that the Founders feared and they have found their champion in Donald Trump. There is a reason the Founders created the Electoral College and depended upon the large size of the American republic for picking presidents- they wanted to protect us against this sort of demagogue. Trumpism is a cancerous message bereft of any actual policies, but xenophobic enough to ensure that the Republicans drive away non-white voters for the next generation. Any politician who endorses Trump will be enabling this cancer and I will not vote for any Republican who kisses Trump’s rings. They are, in essence, Vichy Republicans who think that if they cozy up to Trump, they can get the scraps off his table or they can somehow work with him and maybe make him less of a monster. They are selling their souls to a madman who cannot be trusted and has no respect for the Constitution. If their careers are worth more than their souls and principles, so be it. I, however, will not redefine conservatism to mean “Trumpism” and I will not make any kind of pact with Trump.
It is possible, perhaps, that Trump does not win the nomination. But even if Ted Cruz is the nominee, the party will have to cleanse itself of Trumpism before I am willing to return to it. This may mean doing dirty tricks at the convention that drive away the supporters he has brought in to the party. It is worth losing their support, so that the party can prove that it is not the party of white supremacy and can begin building new coalitions with minority voters (which the GOP will have to do since whites will not be the majority indefinitely).
Even if Cruz is the nominee, he will have to earn my vote in November. Ideologically, I am probably closest to Kasich, but he, Rubio, and Cruz are all so conservative it really does not make a difference. Cruz’s tone, however, is what makes him so much more exclusionary than Rubio or Kasich. Cruz is only running on behalf of his “courageous conservatives” and has shown no desire to build bridges with anyone to his left. If he somehow wins the nomination, Hillary will destroy him in swing states and Cruz’s supporters will blame “the establishment” for not supporting him hard enough (just like Ken Cuccinelli’s supporters blamed Bill Bolling and the Virginia GOP for not adequately supporting his disastrous run for governor), rather than Cruz for staking out such hardline stances. My other problem with Cruz is that I see him as a backstabbing Machiavellian ideologue. The 2013 Government Shutdown is the perfect example of this. Cruz launched an ideological crusade that had no chance of success and was able to blame the party leaders for abandoning the cause, even though they had no leverage and no hope of securing anything more than a few face-saving concessions. Cruz was able to use that to show that no one else in Congress could be trusted and he is the only “pure conservative,” which gave him a nice fundraising boost from those who do not seem capable of understanding checks and balances. In the current race, the fact that he has not expressly told his supporters in Florida to vote for Rubio just proves my point: he would rather lose and prove his ideological purity than build any bridges with those slightly less conservative than he. He is a much better choice than Trump, but he makes it so difficult to like him. And I do not think he really wants my vote in November or my support right now. Despite how conservative I am, he would still see me as part of the “mushy middle.” As such, the best Cruz can hope for from me is that I would reluctantly cast my vote in vain on his behalf.
The GOP in 2015 had such a great opportunity. Between Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and a few other rising stars, it looked like the party finally had the chance to not only win the White House, but perhaps build some new coalitions, as well. But Hurricane Trump ruined it all. Even if he somehow wins the White House in November, he will destroy the GOP in the long-term. The party will have no chance with Hispanics (the fastest-growing demographic) or Millennials if Trumpism defines the GOP. With Marco Rubio, in particular, the party had its best, most articulate conservative candidate since 1984. Rubio has a positive, optimistic vision for this country that should have ushered the GOP into a new era, one defined by such luminous stars as Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy, Mia Love, Susana Martinez, and Ben Sasse. Instead, the party has elected to go down the path of anger and insanity. If Trump wins, then the Republican Party will have been destroyed by a con man. If Cruz wins, the party will survive, but suffer catastrophic losses in November. All of this because Rubio’s positive message failed to resonate with an angry electorate.
Consequently, I have had enough. I am through with trying to convince Trump's supporters that he cannot be trusted and is playing them all for fools. I am through trying to show Cruz's supporters that “courageous conservatives” are not a majority in this country and he will lose in a landslide to Hillary Clinton because he will not do well in swing districts. I really like Rubio and I hope he resurrects his political career after this, but that’s not enough to keep me blindly loyal to this party. I hope the GOP drives out Trumpism and tries to form new coalitions that can revitalize it and return it to the optimistic party that Reagan created. But if they cannot, then I am happy to see it crumble under the weight of its own anger and hostility so that a new right-leaning party can take its place- one that renounces white nationalism and embraces the principles of freedom and statesmanship rather than authoritarianism and demagoguery.
Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish, Republican Party! I will continue to support candidates trumpeting liberty and embodying statesmanship without you.
But today, I am leaving the Republican Party. I may well join the Libertarian Party or I may simply remain a moderate conservative independent who is part of the anti-Trump resistance. But today, it became clear to me that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee because anti-Trump conservatives are incapable of working together to defeat him. In order to stop Trump, we must deny him the delegates in Florida and Ohio. Marco Rubio’s team told his supporters to vote for John Kasich in Ohio in order to make this happen. And how did the other sides respond? Kasich’s spokesperson sneered at this effort and Justin Amash, a functional Cruz surrogate, did likewise. Oh, and PACs associated with Cruz continue to try to hammer Rubio in his home state. Rubio is playing to stop Trump, Cruz and Kasich are playing for themselves. As such, Trump is going to win the nomination.
I cannot, in good conscience, be associated with the party of Trumpism. Trumpism represents the worst of American politics. It is a message of anger and no substance. It is a cult of personality behind a man who probably does not have a single political principle, but knows how to mimic the message his supporters want to hear. He is a talented entertainer and knows what his audience wants to hear. Scarier than Trump, however, are his supporters. They are angry at everything, especially people who are not white. They abandon reason and blindly support anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. They are, in essence, the mob that the Founders feared and they have found their champion in Donald Trump. There is a reason the Founders created the Electoral College and depended upon the large size of the American republic for picking presidents- they wanted to protect us against this sort of demagogue. Trumpism is a cancerous message bereft of any actual policies, but xenophobic enough to ensure that the Republicans drive away non-white voters for the next generation. Any politician who endorses Trump will be enabling this cancer and I will not vote for any Republican who kisses Trump’s rings. They are, in essence, Vichy Republicans who think that if they cozy up to Trump, they can get the scraps off his table or they can somehow work with him and maybe make him less of a monster. They are selling their souls to a madman who cannot be trusted and has no respect for the Constitution. If their careers are worth more than their souls and principles, so be it. I, however, will not redefine conservatism to mean “Trumpism” and I will not make any kind of pact with Trump.
It is possible, perhaps, that Trump does not win the nomination. But even if Ted Cruz is the nominee, the party will have to cleanse itself of Trumpism before I am willing to return to it. This may mean doing dirty tricks at the convention that drive away the supporters he has brought in to the party. It is worth losing their support, so that the party can prove that it is not the party of white supremacy and can begin building new coalitions with minority voters (which the GOP will have to do since whites will not be the majority indefinitely).
Even if Cruz is the nominee, he will have to earn my vote in November. Ideologically, I am probably closest to Kasich, but he, Rubio, and Cruz are all so conservative it really does not make a difference. Cruz’s tone, however, is what makes him so much more exclusionary than Rubio or Kasich. Cruz is only running on behalf of his “courageous conservatives” and has shown no desire to build bridges with anyone to his left. If he somehow wins the nomination, Hillary will destroy him in swing states and Cruz’s supporters will blame “the establishment” for not supporting him hard enough (just like Ken Cuccinelli’s supporters blamed Bill Bolling and the Virginia GOP for not adequately supporting his disastrous run for governor), rather than Cruz for staking out such hardline stances. My other problem with Cruz is that I see him as a backstabbing Machiavellian ideologue. The 2013 Government Shutdown is the perfect example of this. Cruz launched an ideological crusade that had no chance of success and was able to blame the party leaders for abandoning the cause, even though they had no leverage and no hope of securing anything more than a few face-saving concessions. Cruz was able to use that to show that no one else in Congress could be trusted and he is the only “pure conservative,” which gave him a nice fundraising boost from those who do not seem capable of understanding checks and balances. In the current race, the fact that he has not expressly told his supporters in Florida to vote for Rubio just proves my point: he would rather lose and prove his ideological purity than build any bridges with those slightly less conservative than he. He is a much better choice than Trump, but he makes it so difficult to like him. And I do not think he really wants my vote in November or my support right now. Despite how conservative I am, he would still see me as part of the “mushy middle.” As such, the best Cruz can hope for from me is that I would reluctantly cast my vote in vain on his behalf.
The GOP in 2015 had such a great opportunity. Between Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and a few other rising stars, it looked like the party finally had the chance to not only win the White House, but perhaps build some new coalitions, as well. But Hurricane Trump ruined it all. Even if he somehow wins the White House in November, he will destroy the GOP in the long-term. The party will have no chance with Hispanics (the fastest-growing demographic) or Millennials if Trumpism defines the GOP. With Marco Rubio, in particular, the party had its best, most articulate conservative candidate since 1984. Rubio has a positive, optimistic vision for this country that should have ushered the GOP into a new era, one defined by such luminous stars as Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy, Mia Love, Susana Martinez, and Ben Sasse. Instead, the party has elected to go down the path of anger and insanity. If Trump wins, then the Republican Party will have been destroyed by a con man. If Cruz wins, the party will survive, but suffer catastrophic losses in November. All of this because Rubio’s positive message failed to resonate with an angry electorate.
Consequently, I have had enough. I am through with trying to convince Trump's supporters that he cannot be trusted and is playing them all for fools. I am through trying to show Cruz's supporters that “courageous conservatives” are not a majority in this country and he will lose in a landslide to Hillary Clinton because he will not do well in swing districts. I really like Rubio and I hope he resurrects his political career after this, but that’s not enough to keep me blindly loyal to this party. I hope the GOP drives out Trumpism and tries to form new coalitions that can revitalize it and return it to the optimistic party that Reagan created. But if they cannot, then I am happy to see it crumble under the weight of its own anger and hostility so that a new right-leaning party can take its place- one that renounces white nationalism and embraces the principles of freedom and statesmanship rather than authoritarianism and demagoguery.
Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish, Republican Party! I will continue to support candidates trumpeting liberty and embodying statesmanship without you.
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