By Patrick Osio Jr.
Finding myself voting against Republican Party candidates in the November 2018 mid-term election is one of my life’s saddest decisions.
I became a Republican at heart at the age of 12, on finding that my dad was supporting Dwight Eisenhower for President. Since he had never spoken on the subject, the obvious question was, “Why hadn’t you said something?” He answered that the Democrats had held the Presidency since before he was able to vote.
Due in large part on my love and respect for my dad, I was a loyal and dedicated Republican. I not only voted the Republican ticket, but supported the party at local precincts, volunteering for door-to-door campaigning, manning telephone banks, speaking at clubs and chambers, writing commentaries and opinion articles, and so on.
My heart was broken by the Richard Nixon debacle. I was such a loyal and ardent believer, standing for him until the inevitable truth could no longer be ignored. But then came Gerald Ford setting the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan, who in my opinion is second only to Abraham Lincoln as the greatest President in our nation’s history.
Starting in the 1990s, I began to fear the party was taking a wrong turn, as more and more extreme voices began to infiltrate, taking positions of importance and getting elected to the House and Senate, plus many state legislative offices, and dominating the airwaves.
It became difficult to understand the verbal assaults against minorities, civil rights, freedom of speech and women’s rights, the growing religious intolerance, and the attempts to prevent voting for opposition candidates through gerrymandering.
Since Lincoln, the first Republican President, championed the fight against slavery, the GOP had traditionally defended civil rights, the Constitution, freedom of all religions, women’s rights, and sensible immigration. But a mockery of these basic principles began to take center stage, accompanied by a deafening silence from the party’s leadership.
In 2016 came the candidacy of Donald Trump, which at first the GOP leadership dismissed as a bad joke, but has since turned into the party and the nation’s worst nightmare.
As a candidate, he told the nation that he alone could solve all America’s problems; that he knew more than all the generals about how to bring peace to the Middle East; that Mexico would pay for a huge wall along the mutual border to keep out drug traffickers, rapists and terrorists.
Trump entered the White House as the 45th President and has since done much to harm the nation in his quest to gain dictatorial power. He undermines the Constitution with his relentless attacks on the press. Through his favorite mode of communication, Twitter, he demeans his opponents and anyone who calls him to task for his behavior or policies, attempting through intimidation to silence opposition. He calls Russia’s Vladimir Putin his friend, and repeatedly labels our intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia sought to help him win the Presidency as false and media reports on the subject as “fake news.”
Then there’s his crime against humanity: separating children from their parents for the non-crime of seeking asylum, and openly saying that he will have them returned to their parents once Congress allocates funds for his border wall.
His promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington’s corruption has instead resulted in corrupt and incompetent cabinet members.
His actions as President are under investigation as well as his former business deals and possible misuse of charity funds, plus potential tax fraud, as well as personal legal suits pending against him.
And throughout all of this, GOP officials in both the House and Senate, as well as the Republican National Committee, either remain silent or support and defend him.
I’ve become an independent, and for the first time since I became eligible to vote in 1960, will vote for Democrats. And I implore other present or former Republicans to do the same.
The only hope for the GOP is to come back in future as a different party — the one it deserves to be.
Patrick Osio Jr. is an award-winning, San Diego-based editor and columnist associated with the HispanicVista.com website, San Diego Metro Magazine, and the former Knight Ridder newspaper group.