Goodbye, GOP — You’ve lost me.
“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”
-Cicero
Most of my friends are pretty liberal. I guess part of that is just the community that I grew up in, but what I also think contributes to that is most of my friends vote Democrat simply because of the negative reputation Republicans get. For better or for worse, the Republican Party has a perception problem.
During the 2012 election, the Republican Party was vilified as the party of old white men, who made sexist comments about women and discriminated against minorities and the poor. And now the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for the Presidency of the United States is a sixty-nine year old white man (not that race should be in any way relevant to one’s ability to perform a job) who makes derogatory comments about women and has characterized immigrants as murderers and rapists. And that’s not even the scariest part about Donald Trump.
The scariest part of Donald Trump is the message that he breeds. He gives a voice to the more hateful members of society, the ones that still believe all Muslims to be terrorists and that women should shut up and stay in the kitchen. The ones who aren’t compassionate enough to overlook a decade or more of excellent behavior, who punish someone for entering the country illegally. He gives a voice to those who think it’s ok to proclaim that others who disagree with your beliefs, simply because they disagree with your beliefs, are not “real Americans”.
That is not the man I want as the face of my party, let alone in the most powerful office in the world. I will not vote for Donald Trump. Let me say that again: I will not vote for Donald Trump. I will not vote for a political party that has let people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have a legitimate chance of living in the White House.
I’m not saying that I no longer believe in the principles the Republican Party has fought for. But I am saying that I will not support a GOP that helps Trump become President. That’s asking too much from me. Free markets, a strong national defense, and a government that seeks to maximize the potential of the people it gets its power from are all core parts of my political philosophy. If in 2020, the Republican Party nominee is someone like Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Kelly Ayotte, Brian Sandoval or Bill Haslam, I will not hesitate to vote for them. That’s just a small list by the way — the farm system for the Republicans is full of people that I think take the right approach to governing.
And so we have come to time for choosing. This election will come down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Hillary is predictable. Trump is not. I’d rather have the Republican Party be the opposition party to a Hillary presidency, compromise with the other half of the country a little, and run a sensible candidate in 2020 than have Trump in the White House and keep apologizing for his insensitive statements and screw ups. Hillary isn’t dangerous, she just sucks. That’s why I, a registered Republican, am voting for Hillary.
The quote by Cicero all the way at the top? I can’t find exactly what he was talking about, but I’m nearly certain it was about Caesar marching on Rome. Today may not be the End of the Republic, but I certainly think the quote applies just as well to the Republican Party.