Sane/Non-Trumpist Republicans - why are you still Republicans?

[The Mikado]

Frankly, a lot of people who are anti-Trump and Republicans don't belong in the Democratic Party, or if they did it'd be for a short-term stint. If you really do believe that cutting taxes for the wealthy is the best route to economic growth and that there is no inherent right to health care and think that America's foreign crises are best solved by endless war, it's unlikely that you're ever going to exactly be a great fit in the Democratic Party. If you do oppose Trump due to his personal stench, the best way to do so is to do it within the GOP and, well, not vote for him in 2020 or vote against Bannon primary creatures for lower races.

[Torie]

Frankly, a lot of people who are anti-Trump and Republicans don't belong in the Democratic Party, or if they did it'd be for a short-term stint. If you really do believe that cutting taxes for the wealthy is the best route to economic growth and that there is no inherent right to health care and think that America's foreign crises are best solved by endless war, it's unlikely that you're ever going to exactly be a great fit in the Democratic Party. If you do oppose Trump due to his personal stench, the best way to do so is to do it within the GOP and, well, not vote for him in 2020 or vote against Bannon primary creatures for lower races.

Good post. I do think that all have a right to reasonable health care, and that cutting the top marginal tax rate will have little or not impact on boosting economic growth (and might retard it if it is a fiscally unsound move), and that troops on the ground wars these days rarely work out well given the costs and risks and unfortunate results involved, and indeed those are reasons why my change of party is not a function of Trump (and I left the Pub party before Trump). Obviously, the more the Pubs embrace the Trump approach, the less frequently I will vote for Pub candidates. My real hot button is that I hate resolving issues through a partisan lens. If I were in Congress, party whips would be wasting their time on me.  

[KingSweden]

Personally, I hope that non-Trumpist Republicans remain in the party, and eventually take it back from Trump et. al.

This. Staying and fighting to bring the GOP and American politics back from the brink is honorable.

I left the GOP long long ago, but I’m in WA so it doesn’t matter. Like GOPers staying behind to be a positive influence I’m big on voting for great Democrats who will govern well.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Once upon a time, the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government.  They long since stopped being for those things, tho they still trot them out when they can be used to block a policy they dislike for other reasons.

[Badger]

I'm horrified with the Trumpist direction the GOP has taken. I'm proud my governor is the national de facto head of resistance within the party.

I'm proud of our local candidates and office holders. The Democratic alternatives have largely been anywhere from wrong the wrong side of me on local issues and/or just plain crap.

[Ye We Can]

Alright dude I'm sure you'll be happy to accept me and my fiscal and mild social conservatism in the Democratic Party.

One day when the SS Trump sinks and the current R's go down with the ship it'll be us that launch the new party boat one day.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Wolfentoad is right. After Goldwater was nominated, many Rockefeller Republicans jumped ship. Did that halt the GOP's march to the right?

After 1992, many pro-choice moderate Republicans jumped ship. Did that halt the GOP's march towards becoming a pro-life Party?

After 2008, many college educated people jumped ship. Did that make the GOP any less anti-intellectual?

Can you see the pattern?

PiT is right, the more people in your given demographic leave, the less dependent on you it will be and the more hostile on you it will be when it inevitably wins without you. The worst mistake those liberal Republicans ever made, was too leave.

And Virginia is right, the left should be very afraid. An exodus of neocons and college educated Republicans towards the Democrats, will in fact serve to pull the Democratic party more in a pro-market/pro-neoliberal direction and push the Republicans in more of a nationalist-populist direction.

Basically a similar alignment to the 1880's minus the post Civil War racial and geographical paradigm.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why am I a Republican?

I rather fancy the Constitution and its institutional building blocks. I wish Conservatives would emphasize equality under the law in the context of the constant fawning over the constitution because at the end of the day, that is what links modern Conservatism with Conservatism in its original state. Hobbes thought people were too arbitrary to govern themselves, Locke thought Monarchs too arbitrary and Burke thought both Government and the people were capable of excess and arbitrary rule. The Constitution matters because its checks and balances, seek to erect a barrier to arbitrary rule and thereby preserve the fundamental foundation for every successful democratic country, equality before the law. Republicans do not talk enough about this and that is why you end up with people like Moore, who make a mockery of the constitution, Federalism and rule of law. This should be what unites all Republicans be they conservative, nationalist, populist, libertarian or moderate and it should be non-negotiable.

We may talk of populist economics and Jacksonian Foreign Policy, but whenever you start talking of Populist or Jacksonian Constitutionalism you are in a very dangerous place, because that means arbitrary power, executive overreach, violating the constitution and inequitable justice (All were present in Indian Removal and Trail of Tears).

My preferred foreign policy is one that takes the realism and credibility of Bob Corker and meshes it with Jacksonian Trumpism. So basically a fusion of Bob Corker and Jim Webb. A foreign policy that identifies clear objectives that are within our interest, works with foreign counterparts to achieve those objectives in the least costly and most effective way possible. Stated like that, how can that possibly be anything but the "conservative" alternative to foreign policy adventurism be it in the form of nation building, or unnecessary entanglements that either don't achieve objectives, do so at too high a price or seek objectives that our counter to our national interest? Either way, the Republican party is slowly evolving in this direction because of demographic shifts in support, generational change and war exhaustion.

I support "New Federalist" approaches on education and healthcare. I generally like the idea behind Graham-Cassidy, but I think the funding levels have to be much higher to make it work, including direct grants to help rural states and also urban areas well. And certainly greater levels of funding to provide treatment for the those addicted to drugs. Aside from Joe Manchin way back at the beginning of the year, no Democrat has expressed anything remotely favorable towards this idea.

I want corporate tax reform and a rate no higher than 25%. I want a simplified code generally, with with as few loopholes and complexity as possible. Any conservative and any Republican should be able to unify around and agree to taking the US tax code and burning it. It is a convoluted mess that seeks to control and distort the economy. This doesn't negate the desire to remove loopholes that favor business, tax hedge funds and wall street generally to pour money back into main street. But the overall view of the code in terms of complexity and simplification is rather libertarian I would say.

I think market competition is good and where I am moderate on economics it is generally of a mind to restore choice where the private sector or gov't for that matter, has produced a monopoly. The same goes with regards to my openness to raising the minimum wage and EITC, since those policies make work more financially advantageous compared to entitlements.

I think the establishment in both parties has badly mishandled trade, failed to help those people and communities directly affected by it and failed to ensure reciprocity. I think the Democrats are going to become more supportive of the trade status quo, not less, solely because of Trump if nothing else.

I think that we should secure the border, including building a 1,000 mile double fence, which is superior to Trump's wall. I also support mandatory e-verify, the implementation of the visa entry/exit system, an end to the visa lottery and chain migration. I also support moving towards a skills based immigration system with formulas based on need, not whatever some industry can buy off through lobbyists to then import workers, fire all the domestic employees, but only after they train their own replacements. I would however support a Dream Act and a path to legalization for those already here, but only after all of the above is set in stone. The Democrats have completely gone off the deep end on this. The days of people like Heath Shuler and the blue dog border hawks are long over.


I am pro-life and generally pro-gun (though I did support Manchin-Toomey).

So yea, the Republicans are either already there or heading in my direction on a lot of issues, while the Democrats have become completely dreadful on most every issue of importance to me. That being said I have not pulled any punches in my criticisms of movement Conservatism, The GOP establishment, the base, the Tea Party, the Trumpists and Steve Bannon. Stupidity seems to equally afflict them all. 

[Beet]

What an arrogant question. Roy Moore is not a good fit for Senator. Of course, if Bill Clinton were running and he was accused of rape, or one of his accusers came out and made a public statement of it, I would not vote for him, either. I would vote for or write in a third party candidate. I did not support Anthony Weiner after he was proven to be a liar in 2011, not even in his 2013 mayoral run when many Democrats were rallying behind him without a second thought.

Still, Democrats tend to be too self-righteous. When they are so convinced that they are right - and believe me, I am quite convinced that the Democrats are better suited to lead America -, they tend to resort to name calling, instead of deeper and more introspective thought about why they are in the minority. And name calling doesn't work. Making threads like this doesn't work. A little common sense and understanding of human nature would not even convince most partisans to open their minds in this day and age, so what hope do you have without it?

[Sirius_]

Also, to answer the OP, “charlatans, sex offenders, racists, and theocrats” represent 0.000000001% of the party

Somehow I doubt that there are 100 billion Republicans, which is the minimum number required for your claim to be true if you were trying to be literal. I know you weren't, but it does go show how many Republicans are numerically challenged and throw out numbers without regard for their meaning. Of course, better examples of Republican innumeracy are the House and Senate tax cut bills. Especially precious are the self-serving ones who claim it'll pay for itself.

What is with the people on this website who take exaggerated percentages way too seriously.

[Frodo]

What an arrogant question. Roy Moore is not a good fit for Senator. Of course, if Bill Clinton were running and he was accused of rape, or one of his accusers came out and made a public statement of it, I would not vote for him, either. I would vote for or write in a third party candidate. I did not support Anthony Weiner after he was proven to be a liar in 2011, not even in his 2013 mayoral run when many Democrats were rallying behind him without a second thought.

Still, Democrats tend to be too self-righteous. When they are so convinced that they are right - and believe me, I am quite convinced that the Democrats are better suited to lead America -, they tend to resort to name calling, instead of deeper and more introspective thought about why they are in the minority. And name calling doesn't work. Making threads like this doesn't work. A little common sense and understanding of human nature would not even convince most partisans to open their minds in this day and age, so what hope do you have without it?

It's easy to be self-righteous when confronted with a party filled with self-righteous sanctimonious hypocrites (fortunately most Atlas Republicans are better than that) who think they have the right to determine what goes in the bedroom in the name of the Almighty.  At least we don't claim to have God on our side for electoral purposes.  

[MasterJedi]

Wisconsin makes it easy with no party registration and open primaries. Can still vote for the good ones and then vote against the bad ones that win come election time. I'll be hones too, I've moved farther to the left but neither party is really a good fit. It's just easy to vote D right now since the R's are so far right they would be a good cartoon villan.

[mvd10]

Wolfentoad is right. After Goldwater was nominated, many Rockefeller Republicans jumped ship. Did that halt the GOP's march to the right?

After 1992, many pro-choice moderate Republicans jumped ship. Did that halt the GOP's march towards becoming a pro-life Party?

After 2008, many college educated people jumped ship. Did that make the GOP any less anti-intellectual?

Can you see the pattern?

PiT is right, the more people in your given demographic leave, the less dependent on you it will be and the more hostile on you it will be when it inevitably wins without you. The worst mistake those liberal Republicans ever made, was too leave.

And Virginia is right, the left should be very afraid. An exodus of neocons and college educated Republicans towards the Democrats, will in fact serve to pull the Democratic party more in a pro-market/pro-neoliberal direction and push the Republicans in more of a nationalist-populist direction.

Basically a similar alignment to the 1880's minus the post Civil War racial and geographical paradigm.

As of now Democrats seem to be getting more liberal (damn, I'm doing it myself now) left-wing on economic issues, and this is primarily driven by college-educated Democrats being very left-wing on those issues (though they're different from the college-educated Republicans you mentioned). I don't think these Dems will let some neocons spoil their party. Numerous potential Democratic presidential candidates already support single-payer. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Democratic president tries to implement a very populist agenda and angers his/her new Republican supporters (meanwhile the Republicans couldn't possibly nominate someone as toxic as Trump, but we've heard things like that before lol).

The Reagan Revolution probably is coming to an end, though I don't think the change will be as dramatic as some people predict. I think the GOP will become more populist/moderate on economic issues, but the Dems will veer even sharper to the left. Bernie Sanders influenced a lot of young Democrats. And when the choice is between say Ramesh Ponnuru (or someone else who proposes raising the child tax credit and EITC instead of slashing the top income tax rate) and Bernie Sanders I'm pretty sure that I know who those suburban college-educated Republican will vote for.

[TheSaint250]

^ mvd10 is right.

It seems as though, if moderates stay back in the GOP, the political scene could transform into moderate Republicans (I believe, however, that Trump's fair trade policies could remain) vs. populist, Bernie-style Democrats.

[RINO Tom]

There is nothing I am going to say that hasn't been addressed already, so I'll keep it simple.  I like what the Republican Party could still theoretically be far more than any imagined Democratic Party that I have deemed feasible.  There is no version of the Democratic Party that I could ever envision really being a vehicle for the kind of America that I think would be best, so that leaves me with two options (IMO): remain a Republican or re-register as an Independent.  Remembering that I live in Iowa (a closed caucus state), I find the second option rather unattractive, counterproductive and "part of the problem."  As others have said, the only way the GOP changes to be less like the bad qualities that have been mentioned is for people who are okay with those bad things to be outnumbered.  More and more Independents isn't going to help.  Additionally, as Badger pointed out, I like my local Republicans in Iowa City, and there is absolutely nothing that this area's GOP has done to offend me.  My family, friends and neighbors who are registered Republicans in Johnson County, IA have absolutely no control over what folks in Alabama or any other area of the country, and - while I know some people would roll their eyes at this - I prefer to look at politics through a "long play" lense, and I take a more mid-Twentieth Century attitude toward state parties on some things in that the Iowa GOP has no connection to the Alabama GOP besides its name and that both claim to support American conservatism.  Even though I think it's ridiculous to think I bear some responsibility for ANY Republican ANYWHERE's actions, I definitely don't have anything to do with Republicans from other areas of the country.  It's not like being a Republican or Democrat really affects how you vote in the voting booth, so who cares at the end of the day?  There are several reasons I'm a Republican, and I am not going to let some asshole(s) in Alabama, DC or anywhere else shame me out of being in a party where I see perfectly moral and kind people being GOPers in my actual life every single day.