Left behind

GOP no longer what it was

In 2006, Asa Hutchinson made his first bid for the Governor’s Mansion, and I worked for Jim Lagrone, who was running for secretary of state against incumbent Charlie Daniels. Even though the state was still predominately blue at the time, I was a Republican. Of the constitutional officers, only the governor and lieutenant governor were Republicans; then-Congressman John Boozman was the sole conservative representing the state in Washington, D.C.

At that time, being a Republican meant something. The party’s brand proudly stood for individual responsibility and against needless taxes and overreaching government bureaucracy. But over the coming years, a stance against needless taxes became opposition to all taxes. A desire to rein in government bureaucracy gave way to pledges to upend entire agencies with no plan or purpose. The cry for individual freedom shredded any notion of community.

By 2016, the Republican Party’s shift was complete. The party had embraced the Tea Party, and their enemy became anyone who did not agree with them. This dichotomy of loyalty — where there is no middle ground and you’re either for us or against us — was the rallying cry of its leader, Donald Trump. The party “establishment” soon fell into line behind him. Even former opponents of Trump (Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, for instance) started carrying his water.

For 15 years I have watched the Republican Party shift from a body committed to working for the betterment of America to a mob committed only to working for the expansion of power. The GOP is no longer the political party I joined.

On Dec. 8, 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, alleging that they had impermissibly changed their election laws — something that only bothered Paxton because President-elect Joe Biden won those states. President

Trump and 17 state attorneys general filed supporting briefs — including Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. These Republican elected officials were more interested in subverting the election for the benefit of their candidate than they were in the rule of law or the Constitution.

Today, we see the inevitable conclusion of a party that relentlessly put politics over country. As I type this, protesters are storming the U.S. Capitol. The mob rule the founders fought to secure against is encouraged by the Republican president who basks only in his own glory without regard to the destruction left in his wake. The Republican Party’s self-indulgence has created a home for conspiracy theorists who cannot accept the results of an election, and it can no longer serve as the home for those who love America.

There is no role for the modern-day Republican Party in a unified, prosperous, and peaceful United States of America.

I can no longer be a part of a political party that works overtime to prevent people from voting and then colludes to subvert those votes through derisive lawsuits and unwarranted challenges to properly certified elections. I can no longer be a part of a party that openly and baselessly undermines confidence in our electoral systems when democracy doesn’t work in its favor. I can no longer be a part of a political party that puts its own self-interest over the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore, I am leaving the Republican Party.