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.

*subhead*It is time.*subhead*