I am a former republican!

[Rebellious Republican]

I have been posting on DU since 2002, and lurking even longer. I became a registered democrat soon after joining DU and celebrated my switch here on DU. I became fed up with the party early on in Jeb Bush’s first term. I had written to the GOP leadership and complained about the arrogance being displayed by our republican politicians, mainly the ones here in Florida at the time. I begged them to get a handle on their egos; I told them that they had become drunk with power and to listen to the voice of reason. And that they will lose moderate republicans if they do not take control of the party. I may have been one of the first to recognize what was happening to the party, however many have followed. But like most drunks, they would not listen. I have watched as the neocons hijacked the Republican Party. They have raped, pillaged, and plundered Floridians and the American people.

When I first started posting here, I was taken under the wing of some old timers who believed that I was sincere in my questions and desire to make the switch (Crewleader, Orangepeele68, Newyawker 99, and countless others to name a few). I had to learn the ways of DU etiquette and have (almost) always abided by the forum rules. I have never been tomb stoned, although I have had some threads deleted by my occasional outbursts of passion. I have been tested and flamed by some who saw republican in my pseudonym, and did not believe my sincerity. My pseudonym was like a lightning rod for freeper trolls, whom I quickly shot down in flames. After all, I used to be one of them, and knew the play book well!

It has been a learning process for me, I have never looked back all these years, and will never regret coming to DU. It has been a source of inspiration and hope for me, I truly have enjoyed it here and will continue to do so. I do not post as much as I used to, but you can bet that I am logging on almost everyday and lurking in LBN, GD Politics and the GD forums to keep up with what is going on.

I believe the winds are truly changing, the neocons can not hold back the tidal wave that is about to come crashing down on their arrogant, self serving, greedy ass’s. It is with great pleasure that I can now say, “I told you so”. Freepers found it hard to believe that there were people out there that would actually leave the party. Well guess what, I have friends and co workers that are still registered republicans that some of whom were very outspoken loyalists that are now going to vote for the opposition. Every single one you that lose your conservative seats can only blame yourselves. All I can say now is, enjoy the private sector, I hear the pay is not as good as it once was, but you already know that don’t you.

Just had to get that off my chest,
Thanks DU,
RR



Don't Let The Door Hit You In Your GOP Ass On The Way Out!

[Redneck Socialist]

1. There are more former pubs here than you might think

I too once voted republican. My conversion came well over a decade ago, but still I understand how effective the right's talking points can be. My parents too are recovering republicans, bush pushed them over the edge.

[MadMaddie]

2. Rebellious Republican thanks for posting and reminding

us that only together will we defeat the * cabal criminals.....we all may not see eye to eye on certain issues but we all agree that things must change to save this country....

I will always welcome you and others like you that understand that something terrible is happening to our way of life, our freedom and our constitution.

Thanks again for your post!! Love the picture!!!:hi:

[brer cat]

3. Thanks for getting that off your chest here!!!

I'm a life long dem except for one vote for Carl Sanders (r) running and winning GA governor against a rank, eeeeeeew, kkk puke dem.

[YOY]

4. When I was 18 I was a dittohead

Then I saw the world and realized just what an idiot Rush (his listeners moreso.) I kept exploring reading and watching reality and the 'liberal media' lie they have spread gets farther and farther away...and my values have not changed.

I'm 32 now. If thinking social justice is 'loony lefty' and that being anti-torture means I am a complete moonbat, then so be it.

I can seen just like you how it is to change from conservative to liberal, I have no idea how someone could slide the other way, with the exception of mental stagnation.

[ginnyinWI]

5. another former Repub here

I voted for Clinton in '92 although still considering myself Republican. By '96 the transformation was complete. So many Republicans never stop to ask themselves why they are Republicans besides the fact that their family always has been.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Lemme give you a high 5

*smack*....now your on greatest page

[Rebellious Republican]

15. Old and In the Way, you have always been on my greatest page!

:pals:

[Dr Fate]

7. I was a Repub/Libertarian when I was 18-19 years old.

I find that former Repubs know how to handle them better than anyone.

[Rebellious Republican]

17. Absolutely, I have watched you smoke a few freepers over the years

mercilessly to I might add!

:toast:

[spooky3]

8. I enjoyed your post--why not start another thread too...

Tell us about

"After all, I used to be one of them, and knew the play book well! "

Maybe list the top ten tactics, and how you now shoot them down?

[SoFlaJet]

9. This is the big tent baby

I was a guy who used to vote for who I thought was the best person for the job.After walking in to my polling place in 2000-that all changed for me FOREVER.I was not allowed to vote.My name was taken off the rolls-like 10's of thousands of other Florida democrats.The neo-con power grab lost a potential swing voter forever that day.NEVER EVER EVER EVER will I vote for a republican as long as I am on this planet.

[Kurovski]

10. K&R (nt)

:kick:

[Rebellious Republican]

14. Thanks for the K&R ,sorry I left you off that list, I have read many

of your enlightening and insightful posts over the years,I am humbled! :blush:

[Kurovski]

23. Hell, I'm humbled to be on the list.

What can I say? :hi:

[roamer65]

11. I voted for Reagan in 1984

and I got Iran-Contra for my vote. I won't vote for any Rethugs now, unless its to bugger one in a primary. I did that in 2000 to ruin the Michigan primary for Raisinbrain. McCain won.:evilgrin:

[Rude Horner]

12. Thank you for joining us

I too (a long time ago) voted for the occasional Repub, before I started actually paying attention to the facts behind what I was being told in the media. DU was a salvation to me and it opened my eyes.

Thanks for a great post. And I LOVE the picture of the guy giving the finger! hehe

[kerry-is-my-prez]

13. I was a lukewarm Rep and made the switch after Clarence Thomas was nominated.....

I had been already on the fence before that - but Bush Sr. nominating Thomas was the last straw for me.

I had gone back and forth between the party's before then.

[Snotcicles]

16. RR you're ok in my book. n/t

[kentuck]

18. Hey! I remember you!

:)

[Raine]

19. I was a repug too

and a very hardcore one though I was a moderate. I did lots of work for them, gave money, volunteered, got out the vote etc. I had enough quite awhile ago when Raygun turned the party so hard right-wing.

[Kahuna]

22. Gotta love a repug that didn't fall for the raygun kkkrap.

:yourock: :loveya:

[Kahuna]

20. You rawk!!!!

:loveya:

[No Exit]

21. "You better win reelection! I don't wanna go home and live under all the la...

That was the caption on an old newspaper cartoon that my parents used to have taped to the refrigerator. The speaker was a congressman's wife, and the henpecked congressman was walking along with her, his head down.

How sweet it is!

[bdamomma]

24. Welcome to the light!!!

[left is right]

25. My beloved, late grandpa used to say

"A wise man may change his mind many times, only fools are so rigid that they will never reconsider their choices." My grandpa would have liked you alot

[Rebellious Republican]

29. Your grandpa was a wise man left is right.....

Repubs called it flip flopping, I think there are a lot of Pub politicians that are "changing their minds" about the definition of flip flopping. I see many of them flip flopping, I mean changing their minds, I mean, oh it hurts my brain, please make it stop, stay the cooarse, no change strategy, no I mean, ......

It really is becoming very entertaining, Don't you agree. :toast:

[tandot]

26. Thanks, Rebellious Republican!!!

I know a quite a few Republicans who are upset with the Republican leadership and who will vote for Democrats. I also know some Republicans who are completely in denial and who just don't want to see the light. I hope after this election we'll find a peaceful way of working together and solve this Nation's problems.

:yourock:

[Rebellious Republican]

31. You gotta deal, works me tandot.....

I have been working my conservative friends for a while now. I have to tread lightly and leave back doors open for them. I have one really rabid right wing co worker who refuses to say he is voting Dem. He says he is "voting the incumbents out", to send them a message, so I nod in agreement with him, and say yep thats what we need to do, vote the incumbents out. His conservative pride will not allow him to admit he was wrong, so I don't rub his nose in it, and allow him his dignity. What do I care what he calls it, the point is, he is voting Dem. :toast:

[tandot]

33. I noticed that, too. Some of our Republican friends try to pretend

to vote Republican but I really have the feeling that once they are in the voting booth, they'll vote Dems. They try to save face in front of their other "Republican" friends ... all "tough" guys ... so they say ...

I don't rub it in. Most of them have kids and I truly think that they care about their kids' future...

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

27. k&r!

[WillyT]

28. Thank You !!! - K & R !!!

:kick:

[Rebellious Republican]

32. Thats a true compliment coming from you Willy T, thanks. N/T

:blush:

[Lochloosa]

30. Just for you....and me...the "old" Florida

"In the South, the breeze blows softer...neighbors are friendlier, nosier, and more talkative.

[Rebellious Republican]

34. Bwahahaha, great avatar Lochloosa, the elephants that is!

Great fishing in your neck of the woods, thats yella dawg dem country, I used to live near "Alatch u way" county myself. ;-)

[myrna minx]

35. Wonderful post.

:hi:

[johnlal]

36. I was a republican when I was young, too.

I was mostly afraid of the National Debt, and I thought the Republicans would do something about it. I also wanted a strong military, and a more limited government.
This was during Reagan years. Sometime during all of that, I realized that it was all lies. I really got sick of the religious right controlling the party. I understood that the Republicans were just giving lip service to their high ideals.
It was a good education during that point in my development. It has made me more sceptical in judging later political figures. I might get fooled again, but I will keep a lookout.

[Straight Shooter]

37. All my friends are Repubs, and none of them ever voted for bush.

The last diehard Repub friend I have is probably going to sit this election out. He can't bring himself to vote Dem, even with a sterling example such as myself of what kind of a person a Democrat is. :D

Great post, RR. I hope your sentiments are shared by millions.

Edit to add, I seem to have landed in deep Repub territory, that so many of my friends are Repubs, and I think the rest are Independents. But the times, they are a'changing ...

[Ezlivin]

38. Some of the smartest Democrats are ex-Republicans

And since I'm an ex-Republican I feel pretty clued-in.

Being an ex-fundamentalist also helps in understanding the mindset of the Religious Right.

[bluedogyellowdog]

39. OK time for me to come out

I'm a former:
1. Reagan Democrat (80s)
2. Reform Party member (mid 90s)
3. Libertarian Party member (1999-2000)

When I first registered to vote in the 80s it was as a Democrat. My choice of parties was entirely a social class thing - working class, blue collar; Dems were still a force in the south at the time; and a family thing - my entire family has been Democratic going back generations, whether you're talking my 1960s-style liberal parents, my Dixiecrat grandparents, my labor union great-grandparents. But I didn't vote a straight Dem ticket at the time - too conservative on too many things.

I do vote a straight Dem ticket now. And I did vote straight Dem *some* years back in the day, like 1986 and 1990.

My brief infatuation with the Libertarian Party was thankfully short lived and I quickly learned they are a bunch of nuts who are living in a fantasy world - they are True Believers who spend a lot of time arguing over the finer points of their extremist no-government ideology, who might as well be Communists - I got the impression with them that the extreme, rigid ideology was what was important with those people, and not *which* rigid ideology. They could just as well have been Communists or religious cult followers. Which is why that party is a pathetic miniscule party without mainstream support and will always be so.

The Reform Party was a different animal altogether. Not a rigid ideological party, and it looked like it had potential, however brief. I was not happy with things like NAFTA, GATT (now known as WTO), Waco, globalization, or most favored nation status for China. Looking back it was inevitable that the Reform Party would fall apart. It was not an ideological party but it attracted all sorts of ideological nuts trying to take it over for their own ends: Buchananites and Fulaniites being the worst, but not the only examples. I came to see that the Democratic Party is the natural home of the American working class - something I instinctively knew in the 1980s, but somehow lost sight of in the 1990s. I also came to see the Democratic leadership come around on trade and globalization, which was the one sticking point for me in the 90s. Finally, after 9/11, grassroots Dems became the cutting edge in defending civil liberties from abominations like the Patriot Act, making any remaining reason to want to have anything to do with the Libertarians a moot point. We have a mainstream party that once again stands for working people as it has historically. I am now a straight ticket voting Yellow Dog Dem once again.

The one thing that I have never, ever been, was a Republican Repuke. :puke: I have always seen them as the party of the very privileged, rich snobs, and religious right fanatics. Still do. That was one reason why I, who was somewhat conservative in the 80s, registered Dem anyhow. Democrats are the party of "regular guys".

[Rebellious Republican]

41. Wow, glad you have found where you need to be.

I am sure that is the readers digest version your story. Life can be complicated and hard to figure out sometimes. I know from my own experiences that there is a lot more to your journey and is way more complicated than your brief synopsis. Thanks for sharing that bluedogyellowdog, hope it helps others who may be lurking. Those are the kinds of stories that helped me when I first stumbled unto these boards.

RR

[Cha]

40. Good on you..seeing the light

when the dark hearted Cons started taking over the republican party.

I'm not sure anything in history has ever been as pure evil as the bushitas and the neocons who pulls the monkey's strings.

[SammyWinstonJack]

42. I am so glad I was never a republican! Thanks Mom and Dad!

:yourock: My Dad always told me that any working class person had no business voting for any republican. And that will be always true! NeoCon or Republican, you are not for the working class, ie the real Americans, and you never will be!

[trekbiker]

43. lifelong Independent and will never switch..

ANDERSON FOR PREZ!!!!!!!! just imagine...