One of the most touching scenes for me in A Beautiful Mind is when Dr. Nash bends down and says a tearful goodbye to “Marcee,” the little girl who has been in his hallucinations for decades.
I’m wondering whether that moment might have arrived for me and the GOP.
To be sure, if rigid party orthodoxy is the requirement, then I was a RINO for a long time. If you know me at all, you know I’ve been out of step with most Republicans on sociocultural issues for decades. However, I always believed in fiscal responsibility. That’s more important to the Republicans, right? Well, no. Can’t say they’ve even really sniffed it since 1994. Even bringing up the national debt seems to make you some kind of creepy wonk these days.
How about a strong national defense, underpinned by American exceptionalism? I believe in that. So do the Republicans, right? Well, sort of. The MURKA! chest-beating is so primitive and jingoistic anymore, I don’t feel like we’re even using the same language, much less singing the same song.
They left me—much more than I left them. Of that I am confident.
It’s tempting to blame Donald Trump, but I think he’s just a symptom (though a large one). The cause is partisan-at-all-costs politics. (Certainly the Republicans have no corner on that market, though I dare say they have more share.)
I voted third-party in 2016 and 2020 for president. I would say the window is open now for a moderate, principled, Republican voice.
Where is that person? I mean, I looked for that person about 2014 too, and look what happened.
Or do I continue to sit here alone, largely unloved on the right because of my (perceivedly) ultra-liberal social politics? Should I go find Didi and Gogo to sit with, maybe?
Maybe the people I’m off to find are Doug Jones Democrats.
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I’ve made no secret of the fact that Donald Trump was the last straw for me with the Republicans. I once identified as one of them, as a conservative, even, but not since Bad Orange Man. I could not in good conscience belong to a party that would nominate that man for the Presidency.
Perhaps if the GOP had nominated Ted Cruz in 2016, I might have stuck with them, but who knows?
I’d had friends for quite some time tell me what I really was was a Libertarian, and in 2016 I chose that path. I voted for Gary Johnson and for Jo Jorgensen.
I honestly believe we may very well be witnessing the death of the GOP. Perhaps the Libertarians will rise to take its place.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I also voted for Johnson and Jorgensen in 2016 and 2020 respectively.
If this is the time of the Libertarian Party’s rise, perhaps they can make some racket with a strong candidate. But, any strong candidate right of center just winds up electing the Democrat. (All those who shrieked about Trump, Hillary, and the popular vote never seem to mention that Bill Clinton didn’t have a popular vote majority in ’92 or ’96, thanks to Ross Perot.)
I’ve mostly given up on the GOP. Too many people excited about Trump ’24, and the just-in-case candidate seems to be DeSantis? No thanks.
I think what I hope for in ’24 is a primary challenge for Biden from a centrist Democrat. (But I say “mostly given up” in the previous paragraph because there’s still time for a centrist Republican to make some racket, so I keep a hopeful-perhaps-naive eye on that too.)