Republicians

In earlier days, it didn’t feel like a particularly urgent question. Both parties had their flaws, but they also had ideas. They argued, they compromised, and they usually managed to work things out. I believed in the process more than the party.

I believed the grown-ups were in charge.

Over time, that confidence faded. What used to be a clash of visions became a war on reality. And one side stopped negotiating altogether.

I wasn’t a bumper-sticker shouter or a red-hat rally-goer. But I believed in certain values: limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal restraint, free markets, and national dignity. I didn’t expect perfection—just seriousness. Just an effort to lead.

That version of the Republican Party no longer exists.

What’s taken its place isn’t a conservative movement. It’s something meaner, smaller, and infinitely louder. A MAGA-fueled reaction machine addicted to grievance and unbothered by facts. Somewhere along the way, it stopped trying to conserve anything but power.

What We Were

There was once room in the Republican Party for debate, policy arguments, and pragmatic leadership.

• Dwight Eisenhower built the interstate highway system and warned against the military-industrial complex.
• Richard Nixon, for all his flaws, founded the EPA, signed landmark environmental laws—and opened diplomatic relations with China. His 1972 visit helped normalize U.S.–China ties, ease Cold War tensions, and shape global trade for decades to come.
• Ronald Reagan raised taxes when necessary and signed bipartisan immigration reform.
• George H. W. Bush broke his “read my lips” pledge to help reduce the deficit.

Nixon’s foreign policy wasn’t ideological—it was strategic. He used diplomacy to shift the global balance of power, to reduce nuclear tensions, and to create opportunities for trade. He opened China. Today’s GOP is trying to slam the door shut.

There was seriousness. There were grown-ups. There were, occasionally, consequences.

What We Are

Today’s Republican Party isn’t conservative in any meaningful sense. It runs not on policy, but on rage. It doesn’t lead—it provokes. It doesn’t argue—it performs.

And it no longer has ideas—just destruction.

No serious proposals for healthcare. No vision for education. No plan for climate change, housing, wages, or infrastructure. What passes for a platform now is a cycle of grievance, obstruction, and cultural panic. Book bans. Drag show crackdowns. Paranoia dressed up as patriotism.

The party’s official 2020 platform? They didn’t even write one. They simply pledged loyalty to trump.

The litmus test for belonging isn’t belief in principle—it’s personal allegiance to donald trump, no matter what he says, does, or burns down.

We’ve gone from “Ask not what your country can do for you” to “Own the libs.”

The party that once distrusted executive overreach now cheers for strongman tactics.
The party that once championed states’ rights now dictates what your doctor can prescribe and what your kids can read.
The party that once warned of Soviet tyranny now cozies up to Putin.

Trump didn’t just abandon Nixon’s China policy—he tried to reverse it entirely. Tariffs, bans, and culture-war saber-rattling replaced strategic diplomacy. He sabotaged supply chains, threatened educational ties, and turned global trade into a loyalty test.

And if you’re still wondering whether Orwell was exaggerating when he wrote:

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” —George Orwell, 1984

You haven’t been to a GOP rally lately.

Why I Left

I didn’t walk away in a blaze of protest. It was slower than that—a steady erosion. A growing ache that something fundamental had shifted. That reason had given way to spectacle. That policy had been replaced by performance. That principle had surrendered to personality.

It wasn’t just trump. He’s not the cause—he’s the symptom. The real disease is the party’s wholesale abandonment of ideas in favor of tribal obedience. Of democracy in favor of control. Of reality in favor of loyalty tests.

This didn’t happen all at once. But the direction is unmistakable.

Where We’re Headed

Over the years, I truly believed we were making progress—a slow, uneven march toward that more perfect union we always talked about. We weren’t there yet, but we were moving. Expanding rights. Expanding awareness. Becoming, however awkwardly, a more decent country.

And then trump appeared—twice, for God’s sake.

Twice, we summoned this wrecking ball of bad faith and watched him swing it straight through the institutions we’d spent generations building. Once could’ve been a fluke. Twice is a message.

And the message is: if we don’t defend this republic, no one will.

As Franklin warned at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787:

“A republic—if you can keep it.”

And right now, keeping it is the hardest task we face.

We need two strong, functioning political parties in this country. We need competition between thoughtful, serious visions for how to govern. We need a loyal opposition—not a demolition crew.

That means rebuilding. It means rejecting the grifters and performance artists. It means making space again for facts, science, decency, and long-term thinking.

Because what we have now isn’t sustainable—not morally, not democratically, and not structurally.

It’s easier to break things than build them.

If you're still holding out hope that the old GOP will come back—I get it. I waited too. I thought the fever would break. I thought the adults would reclaim the room.

But eventually, you realize the house you trusted has been gutted, flipped, and filled with gasoline.

And at some point, you have to walk out the door—because staying means pretending you don’t smell the smoke.

I’m don’t remember being a Republican though I may be in denial.

P.S. A MAGA friend just wrote. He is terribly upset. ICE just kidnapped a kid from the local school.