DAVID DUNN

_{Leah Millis/Reuters}

I’ve debated for a long time whether or not I wanted to write this piece. After the four-year nightmare of the last administration, a heavily contested presidential election, and an insurrection that killed five people and threatened our democracy, I needed to step away from politics for a minute to take care of myself and give myself the mental and emotional break that I needed. But after toiling the past few years in my head the last few months, I can no longer be silent. I have to express myself freely here, even if it is just for my own sake.

The first time I became interested in American politics was during the 2008 presidential elections. Back then I identified as a constitutional conservative, and I was rooting for John McCain to win the presidency. There were many reasons why I identified as a conservative back then. For one thing, most of my favorite presidents were all Republicans, including my number one favorite president Abraham Lincoln. For another thing, the Republican Party had a long history of promoting liberty and fighting oppression, and I was especially disgusted by the Southern Democrats’ sordid history with slavery. And for another more simple reason, I just agreed with their platform more. Whether it was regarding free trade, taxes, supporting the police and military, and general social causes, I more closely aligned with Republican policies and thought it led to a stronger nation more than the Democrats’ identity-driven politics did.

But more than anything else to me, the Republicans genuinely seemed to be more interested in free speech and open debate with others they disagreed with, while the Democrats were more inclined to bullying and mocking their political opponents just because they thought differently than they did. I found that kind of repression and belittling to be disrespectful and pointless. If you’re trying to convince me of your argument, you’re never going to get there by calling me names or by treating me with hostility. That’s a piss-poor way to get me to like you, let alone to try and understand your viewpoint.

I genuinely believed all of this in my heart of hearts until Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016. To me, there was no part of him that behaved like a true conservative, even less so a president. For one thing, I found his policies to be egregious and excessive even by conservative standards. While we needed border security, I thought the wall was a stupid and wasteful idea and there were better ways to protect our country than by building a giant brick that immigrants could either swim, dig, walk, or climb their way around. I also knew that Mexico was not in a million, billion years going to pay for it, and people who genuinely believed that were either foolish, willfully ignorant, or quite possibly both. His flip-flopping on the issues was also quite concerning, as he couldn’t clearly dictate whether he was pro-choice or pro-life, would accept refugees or deport them all, or protect LGBT communities or discriminate against them. Hell, he even struggled with accepting or rejecting endorsements from the KKK. At least with Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein, you knew where they stood on the issues and could confidently vote for or against them. Donald Trump was more inconsistent than Paul Ryan, and that’s saying something.

But the worst part of his campaign to me was his conduct. From encouraging violence at his rallies to blatantly disrespecting war heroes to mocking a disabled reporter to the thousands of disparaging remarks he’s made about women, including in the now-infamous Billy Bush tape, there was no part of Donald Trump that embodied the decency and the respect that I believed Republicans were capable of. I thought Democrats could be rude and condescending, but Donald Trump was so rotten to the core that he pushed me away from the Republican Party and made me even consider voting for Clinton. In the end I didn’t vote for either major party candidate because, in my view, neither of them deserved the presidency. I still question whether or not that was the right decision to make.

Against all of my better wishes, Donald Trump won the election and became president. And unbelievably enough, I had hope for his presidency. I had thought that imbued with the high power and responsibility of the Oval Office, he would elevate himself to the White House’s standards and be the president that all of America needed. I vastly overestimated his capabilities. From his lies to his racist dog whistles to his multiple emolument violations to his two impeachments to his draconian immigration policies to his inhumane and heartless family separations to his shitty, shitty, SHITTY response to the coronavirus, there was no bottom for how low Donald Trump and his presidency could sink. It’s like he dug himself a 6-foot grave and then kept digging, and digging, and digging, digging, digging, digging, digging, digging, digging, and digging until he popped his Oompa Loompa face out on the other end of the Earth and emerged from China (or Chiy-nah, as the former president likes to pronounce it).

But to me, all of that wasn’t even the worst part of his presidency. Not even close. Because at every turn, at every tweet, at every stupid, cruel, and incompetent decision he made, at every jab at his critics, at every broken precedent, at every disrespectful swipe at his constituents, at every racist, sexist, homophobic statement, at every spit in the face to our constitution and our union, Republicans stood by Donald Trump, defended him, and absolved him of any responsibility or accountability. It’s one thing to support a particular policy a president supports and advocates for. It’s another thing entirely to enable bad, abhorrent behavior and spoon-feed excuses to the baby-in-chief year after year after year after year. It’s like they jumped into the 60-foot grave with the disgraced ex-president and happily started digging along with him. 

When Donald Trump obstructed an FBI investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia at least 10 times, Republicans supported him by saying the investigation was purely political, despite the fact they all supported a lengthy investigation into Benghazi that resulted in zero arrests or convictions.

When Donald Trump attempted to cancel DACA and jeopardized over 800,000 Dreamers’ lives, Republicans defended it as “good politics” and used it as a scapegoat to try and build the wall.

When Donald Trump was accused of sexual assault by 25 different women, Republicans tried to switch the conversation to Joe Biden’s eight allegations while simultaneously dismissing all of Trump’s accusers as liars and political opportunists.

When Donald Trump separated over 5,000 families and deported over 500 children’s parents, Republicans blamed the Obama administration despite the fact that it wasn’t their policy and that we have seen the attorney general’s memorandum to prove it.

When Donald Trump shut down the government three times due to his own ignorance and refusal to work with Congress, Republicans blamed their Democratic peers despite their numerous attempts towards bipartisan solutions.

When Donald Trump called Africa and Haiti “shithole countries,” compared immigrants to animals, quoted segregationist George Wallace, told four congresswomen of color to go back “from which they came,” and said there were good people “on both sides” of Charlottesville, Republicans argued he was taken out of context and didn’t say those things that he did.

And when Donald Trump’s clumsy, incompetent, idiotic response to COVID-19 cost us over 584,000 lives and counting, Republicans deflected to Obama’s epidemic responses despite the fact that Donald Trump lost 46 times more lives in one pandemic than Obama did in four epidemics.

For me, there was no last straw when it came to Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It was more like they dumped the wheelbarrow of all of its straws, set it on fire, then ripped the wood from the barrow and threw it into the fire to keep it burning. Then they detached the wheels and handles and burned that shit too before they threw the bolts in as well. But if I had to pick a last flaming disaster when it came to Donald Trump and his Trumplicans, it would have to be the 2020 election and their subsequent response to it.

Because if you paid attention to Donald Trump’s rhetoric, behavior, and actions at all over the last six years, none of what happened with the 2020 election’s outcome came as a surprise to anyone. Everything, from Trump’s refusal to concede, to whining that the election was stolen from him, to claiming without proof that the Democrats cheated, to demanding that Republicans overturn the election to launching a God-damned attack on the Capitol, all of it is in line with who he is and how he behaves. And that is, in a few words, childish, immature, repulsive, sickening, and deplorable.

What is surprising is how many Republicans supported his efforts to overturn the election — indeed, continued to support him even after his supporters attacked the Capitol. Shortly after the attack had ended, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the election and the will of the American people. After the certification of the votes, 240 Republicans voted not to convict Trump for inciting a riot onto the Capitol despite all of their empty condemnations of his behavior. Around 45 percent of them then said they supported the Jan. 6 insurrection, voted to oust Rep. Liz Cheney for refusing to say the election was stolen, and then voted against creating a commission to investigate the facts surrounding the attempted coup. Indeed, if Donald Trump were to announce his run for the 2024 GQP nomination today, 66 percent of these idiots would support him again despite everything he did to try and usurp our democracy. That’s how beyond decency, reasoning, and common sense most of these Congressional Republicans have become.

I don’t know what changed with the Republican Party. I genuinely don’t. I don’t know how they’ve gone from resisting tyrants during our country’s founding to now suddenly worshipping one in their own party. I don’t know how they’ve gone from advocating for limited government to now being perfectly okay with authoritarian government as long as it fits their agenda. I don’t know how they go from supporting legal immigration to criminalizing it, from saying all lives matter to only some lives matter, from claiming to be pro-life to suddenly not giving a rat’s ass about other lives the minute they leave the womb. I don’t recognize this party at all from the one I grew up with. More terrifyingly, I wonder if it ever existed at all or if I was fooled into thinking it was ever anything other than what it actually is.

To me, the modern-day Republican Party is not one of fiscal responsibility, limited government, legal immigration, liberty, independence, free speech, pro-life, or even “family” values. It is the party of embracing lies and conspiracy theories over truth and reality. It is the party of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. It is the party that celebrates cruelty and isolationism over unity and progress. It is the party of intolerance that will bully you and yell “fuck your feelings” if your views don’t line up 100% with theirs. It is the party of hypocrisy and double standards that will hold their political opponents to the strictest standards while simultaneously giving themselves a free pass on breaking every precedent in the book. It is the party that cares when Bill Clinton gets a blow job but doesn’t even bat an eye when Donald Trump obstructs multiple investigations, tries to overturn an election, and incites an attack on the Capitol.

That is why I no longer identify as a Republican or as a conservative. Today’s Republican Party does not stand for American values, if they ever stood for them at all. They only stand for Donald Trump and their own reelection prospects. At this point, I not only refuse to support or endorse any Republicans in future elections: I actively advocate that the modern-day Republican structure needs to be torn down brick by brick until only moderates and Never-Trumpers are left. Anything less than complete and utter obscurity for them will continue to threaten our nation now and into the future.

To be clear here, I have not abandoned all conservative beliefs entirely. I still believe that capitalism is a healthier economic model than socialism is, I’m still a full supporter of the second amendment, and more than anything else, I still believe in the importance of free speech and expression. And if Republicans behaved differently over the last few years and refused to exalt one man over our country, our constitution, and our union, then maybe I wouldn’t feel as strongly about them as I do today. But the modern-day Republican Party no longer represents decency, civility, or indeed anything resembling even an inkling of bipartisanship, if it ever did at all. Instead of reinforcing moderates like Liz Cheney, Justin Amash, and Mitt Romney, the Republican Party instead celebrates the far-right conspiracies of Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, and Marjor-Pain-In-The-Ass Taylor Greene. I refuse to entertain or consider a party that won’t hold its more radical members accountable for their own actions. That is not a political party at work there. That is a cult.

I have one last thing I’d like to say before I wrap this up. Years ago when Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination, I was concerned that he would poison and pollute how people see the conservative movement — that he would harm the Republicans’ image and he would poorly represent the party. Now he has become the perfect representation for what it is today, and that saddens me more than anything I can even express.

I used to be afraid that Donald Trump would destroy the Republican Party. Now I’m afraid that he didn’t.

– David Dunn