Another One Sees The Light

Dribs and drabs: surely not enough to make a difference. But, as we watch the country devolve into willful stupidity and denialism, buying into the lies and distortion of Fox "news," the RWS™, and their "he's all we got left so let's go with him" prevaricator in chief, it's nice to know that among those remaining conservatives with functioning brains, truth can still find a way:

I’m a life-long Republican. My political affiliation has been woven intrinsically into the very fabric of my being.

...

... As an adult, I continued to be a rock-solid Republican- I helped run my law school’s chapter of the Federalist Society and its Republican club. And after the election of President Obama in 2008, I served as an officer in my state Republican Party. ...

Today, however, I am a registered Republican no longer.

I came to the decision to leave the GOP not with a heavy heart, but with a broken one.

...

As a local GOP official after President Obama’s election, I had a front-row seat as it became infected by a dangerous and virulent form of political rabies.

In the grip of this contagion, the Republican Party has come unhinged. Its fevered hallucinations involve threats from imaginary communists and socialists who, seemingly, lurk around every corner. Climate change- a reality recognized by every single significant scientific body and academy in the world- is a liberal conspiracy conjured up by Al Gore and other leftists who want to destroy America. Large numbers of Republicans- the notorious birthers- believe that the President was not born in the United States. Even worse, few figures in the GOP have the courage to confront them.

Republican economic policies are also indefensible. ... one only has to look at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget to see that.

In the end, it offers a dystopian vision of our future- a harsher, crueler and more merciless America starkly divided between the riders, and the ridden....

... Among all the difficult truths I’ve had to face, perhaps none has been harder than the realization that I, and those dissidents like me, are unrepresentative outliers far removed from, and largely unable to influence, the main currents of opinion within the GOP.

Ultimately, leaving the GOP was necessary in order to maintain my own integrity. Leaving is also a public act of personal protest. ...

Perhaps, one day, a reformed and responsible Republican Party will reemerge....

Well, one can hope. As I've written many times, the country needs a functioning conservative party, one that offers real ideas, is committed to finding solutions, and is willing to seek middle ground for the good of the country. What inhabits the corpse now, though, is entirely the opposite; and it's beyond my understanding that seemingly intelligent people try to defend it, refuse to see it, or just ignore it. Because, I assume, securing a future is less important to them than getting rid of the black guy, or because they can't stand the idea of marriage equality, even when none has shown any way it affects them personally. Or maybe it's because they long so much for the days of yore, when white folks reigned supreme, that they figure if they just wish everything else away, it'll go back to when everyone else knew their place. You tell me. I just can't figure it out.

The economic positions of the current R party are dishonest and based on falsehoods; their ballistic foreign policy -- at least that of the advisers surrounding The Rominee -- are dangerous. Their rejection of science and of all forms of expertise is a national embarrassment. And yet, when Republican readers of this blog -- who, by definition, are intelligent consumers of information -- brave the waters and leave comments, they show zero willingness to see the light, unlike the writer in question.

It's one thing -- a once noble thing -- to be a conservative; it's something altogether different to claim allegiance to today's Republican party, a party clearly gone mad, in a world where there's more than enough madness already.