From Republican Fanboy to Blue Dog Democrat: The Reasons I Left the GOP

My father’s parents were Yellow Dog Democrats in Texas. As the decades went on, however, dad increasingly couldn’t make sense of this. He believed they remained obstinately loyal to the party despite seismic shifts in its political beliefs. Each time I heard this come up dad used the same anecdote about how JFK would’ve been a Republican in subsequent decades with his economic policies. I remember dad saying, “It’s not the name of the party. It’s what they stand for that matters.” In the passage of time, I believe there has been another seismic shift in the political landscape. This time it is my late father’s beloved GOP that’s unrecognizable.

Over the past several years, I’ve seen and heard numerous Republicans leaders say their party isn’t truly conservative anymore. One such Republican strategist, Rick Wilson, said that over the past decade his party has fallen prey to what he called “Trumpism.” He observed, “It’s now a political coalition of four groups: racist and/or sexist white guys, angry nationalistic populists, hypocritical crony capitalists, and religious conspiracy theorists.”1 Note that this comes not from a Democrat but a lifelong Republican who started his career working in the Bush 41 White House, later worked for the Dole and W. Bush campaigns, and remains active in the party. He now gets killed within his own party for holding the same conservative views.

Below is a sampling of areas where the Republican Party has changed:

Republicans once believed in the valid role of taxes. As Republican Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” Nowadays Republicans have acquired a libertarian edge by insisting all taxes are theft and accusing the government of coercion for collecting those taxes.

Republicans once believed in guarding against the overreach of corporations. As Republican president Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation… There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.” Nowadays Republican Supreme Court justices defend corporate interests at just about every turn.

Republicans once believed in being careful about the size of the military. Five-star general turned Republican president Dwight Eisenhower used his farewell address to warn the country about the “military-industrial complex.” Nowadays Republicans spend more per year on the military than the next seven countries combined.

Republicans once believed in conserving the environment. It was a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, who created the first national parks and another Republican president, Richard Nixon, who signed into law the Environmental Protection Agency. Nowadays Republicans want to open those parks up for drilling and rollback most of the EPA’s standards to help businesses, if not eliminate it altogether.

Republicans once believed in the valid role of reasonable gun control. As Republican president Ronald Reagan once said, “An AK-47–a machine gun–is not a sporting weapon nor needed for defense of a home.” Nowadays Republicans consistently insist that any regulation of firearms whatsoever is an infringement upon Constitutional rights.

Republicans once believed in creating pathways to citizenship to fix the problem of illegal immigration. As Republican president George H.W. Bush once said, “The problem has to be solved… We have made illegal some types of labor that I would like to see legal.” Nowadays Republicans want to deport all undocumented immigrants, further restrict immigration, maybe build a wall, and definitely keep the naturalization process exceedingly difficult.

Republicans once believed in fiscal responsibility. President George H.W. Bush had the courage to sign a bill that would raise taxes and balance the budget because he thought it was responsible policy for the federal government. Nowadays… well, I’ll defer to Rick Wilson again: “Now Republicans are reckless with the national debt as they spend money like drunken sailors and pass tax cuts aimed at helping 15 Wall Street hedge fund guys rather than the middle-class.”

Republicans once believed in encouraging voting by making it easier to vote. When the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, 82% of Republicans in the House and 94% of Republicans in the Senate voted for it. Nowadays Republicans all across the country are passing legislation that disproportionately targets minority voters, thereby inhibiting their voter turnout.

Republicans once believed in standing up to authoritarian governments, including and especially Russia. There wasn’t a single Republican occupant of the White House in the decades following WWII for whom that wasn’t true. Nowadays we have a Republican president who habitually praises such leaders and a Republican Senate that enables him.

Republicans once were the party leading the way on racial equality. It was the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who spearheaded the passage of the 16th amendment and a century later Republicans overwhelmingly supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nowadays we have Holocaust denying Neo-Nazis running for office as Republicans, which happened not once or twice but five times in the 2018 midterms.

Republicans once believed in civility, comity, and the Constitution. Our last Supreme Court confirmation was unlike any in American history because Senate Republicans during the Obama administration started filibustering literally every single lower-court judicial appointment, then refused to even hold confirmation hearings for the sitting president’s moderate nominee eight months before the next election. Nowadays Senate Republicans won’t even fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities unless it’s their guy.

Republicans once believed in the value of a classical education. Honest Abe himself saw education as the foremost means of personal growth and societal healing. Nowadays Republicans support a populist president who rage tweets from the toilet each Sunday morning and routinely uses words like “bigly.”

While I don’t want to get into political ideologies, I do want to say one thing. There’s no question the allures of government wealth, power, and prestige can and often do have a corrupting influence upon politicians and the governments they collectively form. I concur with Lord John Dalberg-Acton’s famous quote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” At the same time, I don’t affirm this belief that seemingly underscores the whole Republican Party these days that all government–except for the military, apparently?–is inherently bad.2

I’m grateful to have been on the receiving end of good government. I don’t believe the state of Minnesota was vile when they helped dad pay the mortgage and get retrained after the factory closed. Having paid into the system for decades, it was there to help when he needed it. Likewise, I don’t believe the Minnesota government was sinister when they paid off the Mayo Clinic medical bills that exceeded my health insurance policy because I shouldn’t declare bankruptcy before my 21st birthday. When I hear Republicans condemn the UK government as “tyrannical” because it provides healthcare for all of its citizens as my senator, Ted Cruz, is fond of saying, I can’t help but think, ‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’

I earnestly strive to maintain a nuanced perspective. No, I don’t put my faith in the government but neither do I scorn it. No, I don’t put my absolute trust in free market capitalism as today’s Republicans tend to do but neither do I disdain the free market. Again, I’m a moderate.3 Why this tension is so difficult for people to fathom (or believe) is beyond me. If I may be forgiven the quotation of a theologian on this secular platform, N.T. Wright once said, “From where many of us in the UK sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way.” That about sums up my view.4

As has been the case for over a decade, I remain politically moderate. That doesn’t mean I’m a knee-jerk centrist as some tend to assume, though. I don’t hide the fact that on some issues I lean more right-wing and on other issues I lean more left-wing. I simultaneously share political opinions with libertarians and socialists. Yet, on the whole, my perspective remains moderate. That outlook comes not from the “argument to moderation” fallacy, but by an intentional and methodical process of listening to all sides, gleaning whatever elements of truth, beauty, and goodness I perceive, and doing my best to synthesize them into a coherently political framework. That methodology hasn’t change in over a decade nor has my overall outlook.

What has changed is that I’m no longer a political independent. Echoing my father, “It’s not the name of the party. It’s what they stand for that matter.” Moving forward I’ve decided to be a Blue Dog Democrat. If you don’t recognize the term, Wikipedia has a decent summary but the gist is Blue Dog Democrats are those (sadly) shrinking minority of moderates within the Democratic Party whose focus is bipartisanship rather than partisanship, civility rather incivility, and comity rather than aggression. To put them on the blue-red color spectrum, they’re a bluish shade of purple. In an ever more polarized nation, they’re trying to stave off extinction.

In making this decision, I thought a good deal about family legacy. Obviously dad would be rolling over in his grave if he heard, mom was deeply disappointed, and my brother would’ve disowned me if he hadn’t already. Yet I take solace in knowing two things. First of all, there’s no question grandpa Clayton and grandma Dot would be thrilled there are once again Texas Democrats in the Clark family. There’s almost a sense of restoration in that. Second, I’ve applied the principles my father instilled, if not in the manner he would’ve wanted or intended. Just as he believed the Democratic Party had changed without his parents’ notice, so I believe the same has happened to the Republican Party without my family’s notice.

I feel it’s important to now address abortion, that sacred issue that remains why so many of my loved ones are one-issue voters. Start with the big picture. While I do not wish to get into deep matters of faith here, I think it important to acknowledge that I stand with the earliest Christians in upholding a robust pro-life ethic from womb to tomb.5 This seems to acutely frustrate both sides of our bifurcated political system but for different reasons. Many to my left detest my views on issues such as euthanasia and abortion while many to my right loathe my views on the death penalty, gun control, military drones, nuclear proliferation, and universal healthcare. Oh well. It seems I will perpetually irritate nearly everyone in this two-party system.

Now, focusing in on abortion specifically, I’ve long been intrigued by Jimmy Smits’ character on The West Wing. During his fictional presidential debate he opined,

“Do you support abortion to choose the sex of your baby? How about after an IQ test? Well, then you support limits on abortion yourself. Isn’t it all a matter of degrees after that? Who are you, who are any of us to say where someone should draw the line for themselves? Abortion is a tragedy. It should be legal. It should be safe. It should be a whole lot rarer than it is now.” – Matt Santos

No equivocation. Am I in favor of Roe v. Wade? No. I try to be humble in this position and lead with compassion rather than condemnation, but abortion grieves me terribly.6 At the same time (not “But”), what troubles me far more than that landmark judicial precedent is that for all the moral indignation spilt over the issue, the Republican Party’s fend-for-yourself economic policies and abstinence-only education policies actually result in a rise in the total number of abortions while they’re in power. That’s a consistent trend. Perhaps I’m finally seasoning my idealistic convictions with a little pragmatism as in my mid-30s, but I have little interest in a symbolic stand against abortion. With my first child on the way, my robust pro-life ethics push me toward holistic policies that actually make abortion “a whole lot rarer than it is now.”

Returning to the decision to leave the Republican Party and become a Blue Dog Democrat, what changed? What caused my principles to shift from casting blank ballots to joining a party? In my opinion, the Republican Party is no longer a party of sane, rational conservatives with whom I have strong disagreements but can leave it at that. I’ve always refrained from making such a statement so as not to be dismissed as the boy who cried wolf, but the time has come: Trumpism poses an long-term existential threat to the United States and the world. My conscience no longer condones sitting back and watching this walking annihilation of virtue wreak havoc. I have to oppose this man and the movement he has unleashed.

As a child the worst, most hateful insult I could conjure was to call my brother, “You… you… you DEMOCRAT!” As a college freshman, I walked around with a GOP elephant keychain when I wasn’t listening to daily replays of Rush Limbaugh.7 I grew up a Republican fanboy and am now a Blue Dog Democrat, so, yes, my outlook has moderated and nuanced a bit over the years. However, I would suggest my perspective has not shifted nearly as much as most contemporary Republicans would perceive. When Bob Dole, the party’s 1996 presidential nominee, says he couldn’t be a Republican today and John Kasich, who was reviled by Democrats as governor of Ohio, is planning to endorse Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention, I would suggest it is not us who have moved all that much. It is the Republican Party that has lost its soul.