I have been a Republican since before I could vote. I have donated. I have volunteered. I have campaigned. I have even met a President.
I am done with all that.
I hereby renounce my lifelong membership in the Republican party.
100% of the leadership and a significant portion of its elected members are feckless cowards who pay mere lip service to principle but are interested only in the preservation of their power.
I can no longer in good conscience affiliate myself with this party.
For years, I have advocated the notion that it is better to be in the party in order to try and change it. I now am convinced that internal reformation of the Republican party is impossible. If any reformation is to occur, it must be by external pressure.
By external pressure I mean either a 3rd party or campaign funding mechanisms external to the party to select candidates that use the levers of politics to defend liberty, justice, and the American people from a runaway tyrannical government.
The Republican party is corrupt and has taken for granted conservatives (for lack of a better word) like me for too long.
If I am to be a member of a minority party that cannot change the government, I would rather be in a party that holds dear the same principles as me. It makes no sense to align myself with a party that I don’t trust and don’t like just because they are not the evil democrats when that party when that party does exactly what the democrats do 98% of the time.
I will take my money, my time, and my allegiance elsewhere. If one day the Republican party is reformed by these external pressures, I may consider it again. But I do not believe that will happen. I believe that the Republican party must go the way of the Whig party. No party should seek power over principle the way the Republicans have and be allowed to survive on the backs of the principled.
The Republican party as we know it must die. I must be starved of money and votes until it perishes.
This is not an easy or rash decision for me, for I have advocated on these pages many times the opposite position. But I see clearly now that it was a fool’s errand.
More of the same will get us more of the same. Republicans will continue to behave exactly like the democrats 98% of the time. If this continues, the Republic is finished anyway. In fact, it may be finished already.
We must defund the GOP of money and votes. We must support only organizations and candidates that adhere to principle, no matter what.
I renounce my lifelong membership in the Republican party and I will do everything in my power to see it destroyed. That is the only hope for this country.
October 17, 2013 at 2:58 pm
There is no hope in any political party, politics is too worldly. Put your faith in no man.
October 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Thank you for this. My feelings exactly.
October 17, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Hear, hear! Maybe the reign of neocons is at its end!
October 17, 2013 at 3:15 pm
I am still torn, because I don't know how going Galt on the body politic will concern them in the slightest, it simply will make their job of selling us out less troubled than it already is. I don't trust them, I won't fund them, but there's still the obligation to be active in the body of government, something we can't do from the sidelines.
October 17, 2013 at 3:15 pm
I beat you to it. when all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't keep a feeding tube in Terry Schiavo, I was done with these little men and registered independent.
October 17, 2013 at 3:19 pm
It's nice to shout from a soap box but really, the Party doesn't care. I changed my enrollment down at city hall years ago and just waited for the junk mail to end.
October 17, 2013 at 3:55 pm
I'm gone too!
October 17, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Agreed!
October 17, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Agreed!
October 17, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Agreed!
October 17, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Agreed. However, I think that the opportunity for corrective measures no longer exists. The unanswered question now is how much time remains until they crash the economy. Not a recession, a crash. And we will not be alone.
October 17, 2013 at 5:05 pm
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October 17, 2013 at 5:06 pm
I feel you, but do you have any alternatives? I don't care about likelihood of winning, I just want to support a party that is as close as possible to Catholic faith and morals.
October 17, 2013 at 5:18 pm
For now, independence and support of individual candidates. If there emerges a group with a reliable track record of selecting and funding suitable candidates, perhaps I will support them.
October 17, 2013 at 5:20 pm
I'm a little unclear on what you are renouncing here. Maybe it's different for you or your state, but how are you a 'MEMBER' of the Republican Party? I don't have any membership and our state (as far as I know) doesn't register voters by party. We can vote in either primary by choosing on primary day. So I think it would help if you could expound on this and tell us concretely what you are renouncing? I take it you're not going to donate any money to the party, but what about individual candidates? Are you renouncing every individual GOP candidate? That doesn't really seem like a good strategy.
October 17, 2013 at 5:40 pm
I changed my registration to Independent some time ago. And I agree with you. If you don't mind terribly, I'd like to copy this and send it to my R-Reprehensible congresswoman. And I hope you e-mailed it to party hq.
The thing is, I EXPECTED this. I just wasn't sure how long it would take before Boehner started worrying that it would interfere with his tee time with the Prez.
October 17, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Perhaps it's time that "small c" conservative voters in the Republican Party realize that the RP is not the best home for conservatives, and that it is time for a reform movement to emerge.
To my ear, Senator Cruz sounds like Preston Manning, the plain spoken gutsy Canadian politician who led the conservative reform movement (much like the Tea Party movement) that eventually gained power as the official opposition. After years of splitting the conservative vote, the dominant Reform Party absorbed the old guard Conservative Party that had gone off the rails. The reunited party, restored to its conservative orientation and renamed as the Conservative Party, has formed the government for several years and has led our country to relative prosperity.
Cruz and others—and there are plenty of solid conservative politicians to lead a reformed party—might do well to start a conservative revolution and form a Conservative Party in the USA. It may take a decade or longer, but something has to be done to counter the slide into socialism.
October 17, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Switched to non-partisan earlier this year. It's past time to turn the GOP into the Whigs, and if it means a few losing election cycles, so be it.
October 17, 2013 at 7:01 pm
Welcome aboard, Patrick. 🙂
Now we just need some of you Catholic gentlemen to *start* a new party, and we'll be all set. You'll have my vote!
October 17, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Constitution Party