Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party


What follows is the letter I wrote a couple of days ago to the chairmen of the Republican Party Central Committee in my county, on which I served until, well...when I sent this letter.

Co-chairs ___ and ____,

I write what follows most regretfully, and not without much thought and prayer. I am resigning my place on the Central Committee and plan to change my voter registration from Republican to Independent. 

I determined many months ago that I would not, and in good conscience could not, vote for Donald Trump for President. I was content to keep that opinion largely personal unless asked for it, and hoped to see Trump mature, while surrounding himself with quality individuals as others in the party simultaneously worked to move the party writ large in a more conservative and constitutional direction. 

What has happened has been precisely the opposite. Trump has continued to show himself for exactly who he has always been: a bombastic, small minded, morally repugnant, deeply corrupt, endlessly narcissistic con-man. His policies are, in many cases, far ​more
​ progressive and liberal than those of Hillary Clinton, and his character is about what one expects from a reality TV star. This is no great surprise. However, what has surprised and saddened me is the widespread continued support for his candidacy from Republican leaders and politicians, and, more disturbingly, from the average Republican voter. 

I have always known myself to be something of an outlier in Republican circles. I don’t think Big Business is always right, I think cutting spending is more important than cutting taxes, and I don’t like Neo-Con interventionist strategies. But where I once thought I found myself solidly allied with the party, namely, matters of Religious Liberty, the Sanctity of Human Life, and the necessity of moral character from our leaders, are areas which I find myself on the outside looking in at a party who, ​by virtue of its nominating action,
​ apparently values none of these things. Party platforms are meaningless when we nominate candidates who are diametrically opposed to the words in such platforms.

How can it be the the party, the people, who so rightly held Bill Clinton’s feet to the fire simple turn a blind eye, or shrug off, or excuse ​the same type of actions
​ from its own nominee? The only answer can be that politics have replaced principle as the rule of the day.

I understand fully the threat a Hillary Clinton presidency poses to the future of this nation we all hold dear. If folks want to roll the dice and hope that Trump will be better, that is between them, God, and the ballot box. I can’t judge an individual for trying to make the best of a bad situation. But for the party as a whole to continue supporting any candidate so abhorrent as Donald J. Trump, tells me that I can no longer in good conscience participate. 

I continue to hold the members of the committee in the highest regard, and am grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to know some of you, and to learn a great deal. 

Best regards,

Charles W. Dole

Comments

Post a Comment

Subscribe to the Stopping to Think newsletter:

Popular posts from this blog

A quick thought on Christian thought.

Okay, so it's late, so I'm gonna keep this short.  But I'm gonna ask you a few questions and ask you to think through them critically, because I believe your answers to them will radically affect your beliefs...let me rephrase, they do  radically affect your beliefs, this will simply aid us in identifying this circumstance.  When we read the Bible we often come up with questions.  This is good, and healthy.  Questions encourage thought and when we question and subsequently find answers our thoughts are more firmly established, faith is built, etc.  But there are times when we come to Scripture and are troubled by what we find.  Times when God exercises speedy justice and we question His fairness.  Times when we see something go unpunished and question His justice.  Times when we come up against a doctrine (eg, predestination) that seems to contradict our view of who God is and/or how He operates.  In times like these it is of extreme importance to keep in mind that things s
Read more

Confederate flags and loving our brother

I open with a question: Is it inconsistent to call for the removal of Confederate flags (from state-owned properties, as well as Christians dissociating themselves from this flag voluntarily), while not calling for similar treatment of Old Glory? This question has been raised all over my Twitter feed, and perhaps most prominently in a blog post by Douglas Wilson . The US flag does, after all, stand for a number of reprehensible things itself. In our past we have the horrors of slavery...quite the same ones as the Confederacy, come to think of it. We have the massive injustices of murder, land theft, and more of the Native peoples of North America. Currently we murder our babies in the millions. And of course I'm just hitting the lowest of the low notes. So, is there a difference? I believe the answer is, most definitely, yes. First of all, as Wilson labors in his post, flags mean a lot of things, including what a nation should  be. We might say, aspires to be. All men
Read more

Why Christians don't understand the same-sex marriage debate-and thus are losing it.

I want to make a few brief comments on marriage, and the debate over whether or not homosexual marriage should be created by our government. I use the word "created" very intentionally. Note: none of my thoughts or ideas here are original, and most are being expressed by some in this ongoing national debate. However, they are certainly the minority, and so I have decided to add my small voice to the choir. It seems to me that, while not universally, the general slogan of those opposed to same-sex marriage (from here on "SSM") is that they "support traditional marriage and traditional values." Less frequently I hear of a support for "Judeo-Christian" values. Here is my rub with both of these terms, especially the former-they utterly miss the root of this entire issue. The question is not whether marriage should conform to what is traditional. If it were, of course marriage could change into whatever we would like it to. This is because traditi
Read more