If Only the GOP Had Simply Left Me

A little rant on partisan doomsayers.

Ronald Reagan famously said, “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”

It was a slick reference to his past as a Democrat, and his shift away from the party as its governing philosophy became more expansionist. Reagan, of course, became a Republican (and one of the most iconic presidents in U.S. history).

The phrase has been used a lot since then (interchangeably in regard to party identification). It’s a quick and convenient way of voicing displeasure with the political institution one used to align with. In fact, I used the phrase myself in my GOP swan song on this website back in May of 2016. (I just reread that piece, by the way, and with the exception of a single concern from back then, it’s held up very well.)

Unlike Reagan, I didn’t join the other party. I’ve remained unaffiliated, because Democrats have done pretty much nothing since then to appeal to my small-government conservative sensibilities. Not that I ever expected them to. In fact, I believed for some time that there was a much better chance of Republicans, at some point, moving on from Donald Trump and rediscovering their party’s conservative roots.

That, of course, did not happen.

Eight years after Trump took over the party and shaped it into a personality cult whose binding doctrine is fawning loyalty to him and the celebration of his magnificence, principled conservatives and Reagan-era conservatism have not only been purged from its ranks, but are routinely demonized, bastardized, and mercilessly mocked by top party leaders and prominent right-wing pundits (who’ve been having a rough time as of late).

And to add insult to injury, many of those very people still present themselves as Reaganites and conservatives, while insisting that actual Reaganites and conservatives support their aberration (both rhetorically and electorally), or else be branded “fake” conservatives (aka, liberals, RINOs, elites, deep-staters, etc.) who, whenever they criticize the MAGA-right or merely reference an inconvenient fact, are said to be “parroting left-wing talking points.”

This phenomenon is what some of the world’s greatest philosophers might refer to as “a big load of crap.”

Because this perversion has continued on for as long as it has, there is an entire generation of younger Americans who’ve been taught that “conservatism” amounts to personal insults, chronic dishonesty, moral hypocrisy, the seizure of power, and the punishment of opponents — not traditional conservative tenets like limited government, personal responsibility, individual freedom, and a respect for the Constitution and rule of law.

In other words, the GOP not only left people like me almost a decade ago, but continues to back up and run over us at every given opportunity… while their leaders and surrogates insist they’re actually saving us from the destructive forces of the opposition party they work so hard to emulate.

Yes, emulate. And it’s amazing how many longtime Republicans still haven’t picked up on this. For far too many, partisan instincts and muscle-memory from old political battles have been adequate enough to stoke the continued belief that the “other side” is bad and dangerous, without any consideration of all the positions, policies, and rhetoric the Trump-led GOP has adopted from… well, the “other side.”

As I pointed out in last week’s Q&A, our two major political parties — most notably their presidential nominees — are becoming harder and harder to distinguish between on all kinds of matters (including some highly consequential ones):

Both are proposing new entitlements (Trump now wants to expand Obamacare), and refuse to allow desperately needed reform of our current ones (which are going insolvent). There's all kinds of overlap in their (terrible) economic proposals (what Trump is campaigning on is a far cry from the Ryan/Cohn policies Republicans loved during his first term). They both want to impose even more tariffs, which only add to inflation. Both are proud proponents of government subsidies. Neither gives a crap about the national debt, and both love to spend-spend-spend. Both are pro-choice. Both are pro-union. Both are only pro-law-enforcement when it suits them. Both have lent support to criminal rioters. Both have disrespected sacrifices made by our troops (including the ultimate sacrifice). Both are now talking a big game on border security, but Harris has been out to lunch on the issue for four years, and Trump did nothing on it when he had congressional majorities as president; he also recently killed the strongest bipartisan border bill in a generation (for no other reason than to increase his personal political prospects).

At what point does even the minimal Republican argument, “at least we’re not the Democrats,” become a laugh line?

And I didn’t even get into foreign policy, where Trump is arguably to the left of Harris. Ten years ago, I never would have guessed that it would be top Republican leaders trying to throw our Ukrainian allies to the Russian wolves, and threatening to pull us out of NATO. I never would have guessed a Republican president would publicly accept the word of Vladmir Putin and Kim Jong Un over top U.S. intelligence agencies. I never would have guessed the rhetoric of top GOP leaders, on the topic of foreign conflicts, would become indistinguishable from Code Pink’s.

Yet, here we are.

As a Twitter pal of mine said a while back, “It would be rude to support a party that wants me out this emphatically.”

Of course, the Democrats don’t want me either, so I’ll continue to oblige them.

Still, because it’s election season, we’re being called on to make that “binary choice,” which some people amazingly believe is a choice between right and wrong, good and evil, and even life and death. The stakes are so high, they essentially argue, that we can’t afford to consider questions like whether a candidate will abide by the Constitution, or if they’re fit to serve in public office.

The country’s out of time, dammit! And if we don’t pick the “right” unprincipled, economically illiterate, pro-statist flip-flopper who’s committed to only adding to our nation’s most serious problems, all will be lost!

Give me a break.

If the parties truly believed our choice was so crucial — that the very survival of our nation was on the line — they would have given us serious nominees (who are capable of making principled, informed, and persuasive arguments) from which to choose.

Since they couldn’t even be bothered to do that, please spare me all the tribe-shaming and “most important election of our lifetime” nonsense.