If You Were EVER a Republican...WHY? Part Two: What role did Carolina play in your leaving behind the GOP?

I grew up a Southern Baptist in a rural area, so while a whole lot of folks I knew were registered Democrats, they largely supported Republicans. As a teen, I became very interested in politics as a teen and was a hardcore Rush Limbaugh dittohead for a few years. I started to change when I got to Carolina, met a whole bunch of people who were different from my largely homogeneous hometown and became more of a libertarian. Then I lived overseas for awhile and grew further away from being a Republican and more toward being a Libertarian. Then, over the next decade or so, I lived in various parts of the US and ended up a left-leaning Libertarian. About 10 years ago, I started to really understand all the small ways (and some not-so-small-ways) that government really does help all of us on a daily basis and changed to Unaffiliated.

At this point, my political leanings are pretty much guided by my opposition to nearly everything the Republican Party does. Our country needs a conservative party to balance out liberals/progressives, but the current Republican Party can't even do that for being consumed bigotry and cultural selfishness.
 
I started having doubts during the second term of the George W. Bush years, but it was truly over for me when they nominated Trump.

Most of my political shifts have followed the trajectory of my life and aligned with my worldview at the time.

When I was younger, I often followed and believed without question. I tried to fit into places where I didn’t belong—like church—and I voted accordingly.

Although I believed my votes were for the better, I now see how naive I was.

I also felt that I worked hard and struggled financially, while others seemed to take advantage of the system. Yes, at one point, I believed the “welfare queen” myths.

But several experiences began to wake me up. In a Political Science class, I had to write a term paper on welfare. The numbers I found in my research didn’t match what I’d been told. Many similar moments followed.

I also believed in the myth of fiscal responsibility—until I started reading and paying closer attention.

Then, when my daughter began to struggle, I realized that the version of religion I had tried to be part of was a lie. My family received very little help from the church, but plenty of judgment. We received so much support from people we knew from other areas of life—and even from strangers. That opened my eyes to what real giving and empathy look like. It also made me realize I could no longer just be a follower. I had to speak up and defend my beliefs.

As I spent more time learning and reading, I began shifting left on many issues. When Trump was nominated in 2015, I couldn’t vote for someone like him. I hadn’t yet moved far enough to vote for Clinton, but by 2020, I was voting against Trump. By 2024, I was voting for Harris.

Kindness, empathy, and fairness are values I deeply believe in. I support action on climate change, a healthcare system for all, and equal treatment for everyone.

Now, I try to understand the issues and vote based on what I truly believe in—which currently aligns with the Democrats.
 
JCTarheel82 said:
I was raised in an insular, white Evangelical environment and had just turned 18 a few months before the first election in which I was eligible to vote. I wasn't particularly knowledgeable about politics and simply voted the way my parents did. My time at UNC introduced me to different people and perspectives and changed the way that I viewed the world. I still voted for a few Pubs at the local level here and there, but the rise of Trumpism in 2016 put a stop to that.
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Same here. I grew up in an overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly white rural area in the NC foothills, and all but one of my relatives was a diehard Republican. The only Democrats I knew well growing up was a popular uncle and school principal, a local crank, and a few classmates and friends I knew in high school. None of my relatives or neighbors or church members or most of my high school friends and classmates could imagine ever voting for a Democrat. I cast my first vote in 1984 when I was still in high school for Reagan, Jim Martin, and I'm not proud to say, Jesse Helms. I started to change when I reached college and started meeting people who were very different from what I had known growing up and learned that they didn't have horns and pitchforks and in many ways they were less hypocritical than some of the people I had known growing up. In 1990 I voted for Gantt against Helms because of the influence of such friends.

What finally did it for me with Republicans was the rise in the 1990s of people like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay and others. They were the forerunners of what we have today, and they were obviously (at least to me) sleazy and power-hungry moral hypocrites to the core. I found Gingrich to be especially offensive. The final two straws were the ridiculous attempt to impeach Clinton, in which a whole series of pro-impeachment Republicans from Gingrich to Bob Livingston and Henry Hyde, were revealed as adulterers themselves, and Dubya - whom I thought was an unqualified lightweight and imbecile - beating John McCain, a Republican I admired, for the GOP nomination in 2000, and using some pretty dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary to do so. It just seemed so obvious to me that Dubya was running on his family name and dad's coattails with no real merits of his own. I voted for Gore and a straight Democratic ticket that year and haven't looked back.

I'm registered Unaffiliated (since the 90s) but I can't imagine voting for any Republican anytime soon. And the longer I've lived the worse the GOP has gotten, it's like a steady descent into a moral sewer, along with heavy doses of incompetence and growing acceptance of crank and conspiracy theories of all kinds. And I also feel the same way about the Southern Baptist denomination that I was raised and baptized in, I left them many years ago and will never go back. I just couldn't tolerate the hypocrisy and ignorance I saw in too many Southern Baptists anymore.
 
I grew up during the days when North Carolina was a one-party state and the democratic primaries were the actual election though that began to change around 1970-72 when the GOP Southern Strategy began to kick in.

Thankfully I was raised by 1) an Eleanor Roosevelt New Deal Democrat in my father and 2) a boll weevil, "Hell No I Ain't Fergettin'" Democrat in my mother. Between the two of them I was taught not to trust republicans and because my father had the soundest reasoning by far, that conservatives served elites and not the working class.

I remain a registered democrat from the day I went in and simultaneously registered to vote and for the draft though I tend to lean to the Left (despite all of the protestations I've long heard that Democrats are on the Left I find that only true in relation to where the republicans stand and that is increasingly farther and farther to the right, today hedging on anti-constitutional authoritarians with a strong fascist lean). I probably should change my affiliation so that I can monkey wrench the Right even more effectively but like my connection to the Southern Baptist Church I can't seem to get around to doing it.

That said, I vote as effectively as I can reckon against conservatives and have on only three occasions voted FOR a Democrat and I personally knew each of them.

My brother went astray some years ago when he began hanging with some eastern North Carolinians who were enamored with Helms. It broke my father's heart and on his death bed he made me promise never to miss a vote in the general election because he needed me to at least cancel out my sibling. I've often pondered telling my brother about that but like the Baptist thing I have yet to cross that Rubicon.
 
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My family's Republican roots go back to the Civil War. They were border staters who fought for the Union. My parents were Rockefeller Republicans - pro-business, anti-communist, pro-choice and pro-Civil Rights. I inherited and retain many of their political beliefs. I left decades ago when I determined that I could no longer be in the same party as Pat Buchanan. Over time, my economic and social beliefs have trended gradually to the left to where I now fit in comfortably within the orthodoxy of the Democratic center.
 
Huh? said:
My family's Republican roots go back to the Civil War. They were border staters who fought for the Union. My parents were Rockefeller Republicans - pro-business, anti-communist, pro-choice and pro-Civil Rights. I inherited and retain many of their political beliefs. I left decades ago when I determined that I could no longer be in the same party as Pat Buchanan. Over time, my economic and social beliefs have trended gradually to the left to where I now fit in comfortably within the orthodoxy of the Democratic center.
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I know two #DeepChatham (but only two) families that can date their republican roots to the Farmer's Alliance Movement of the 1880-1890s. In one the descendants have scattered across the political spectrum and in the other, at least the one who is a good friend of mine, is a staunch Never Trumper and by IQ stands head and shoulders above his local peers. He is informed, though only attended one semester of college (at state), but well-read and samples multiple news sources. He catches grief from the local dimwitted converts, who grew up on Democrat voting households with "anti-Lincoln" and pro-Redeemer worldviews (if you can call their simplistic regionalistic "lost cause" thinking a "view") -- for those folks, by far the majority among the people that I grew up with, when the republican party went "racist/white supermacist" and the Democratic Party left that behind they switched. I respect my Republican "Never Trumper" friend a great deal and we talk pretty often.
 
donbosco said:
I read often folks admitting to having once been a Republican...

Maybe it was when you first registered or later on or yesterday...Or maybe you actually never registered Republican but always voted that way or considered yourself one...

Why?
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Primarily because I believed they wanted fiscal responsibility. That clearly isn't the case.

I don't plan to go back to the Republican party but, if I did, it would be because the Democratic party has become way to buddy-buddy with the fringe of their party.
 
I think that my Deddy's view was that the GOP had never been fiscally "responsible" to anybody but rich folks.

After Reconstruction were they ever anything else?
 
First time I voted was for Harry Brown in’96. But I smoked pot all day.
By the time the 2000’s hit I was a very conservative Christian and listened to a lot of Beck and Limbaugh. I wanted illegals deported, abortion banned, small government, and was against Obamacare.

But in the 2010 range things began to change. 2 issues got me thinking. Not sure what came first.

1. McCrory and the Republicans reducing what you got on employment. Really pissed me off the system acts as if they are giving a handout yet they are really just giving my money backzz
2. I was in a union and we had yearly and lifetime caps on healthcare payouts. Obamacare removed those caps. I was very happy.

Not sure what year it was but that whole bathroom bill that caused the film industry to leave , that really pissed me off too. Much ado about nothing

But I still voted for Trump, really disnr like Hillary and thought he was a good screw you candidate.

But by the time COVID hit and the Republican reaction too all of that, I switched to Democrat and voted D after that.

Current state of affairs has made it worse. I’d rather die than vote Republican.
 
This thread is long overdue IMO, and I've very much enjoyed reading everyone's anecdotes. I think many of our board Trumpers frequently make the mistake of painting us all as lefty/Democrat/libruls, instead of outright accepting that the Trump Republican party took a violent shift rightward and either 1) stretched some of the moderate conservative folks back to the middle or 2) left those of us who would have considered ourselves Conservatives prior to (approximately) 2008 without a party altogether.

I was born in Dearborn, Michigan. My mother's family was from WV and my father's family was from Michigan City, IN (another area with a noticeably large Arab-American population, but not like Dearborn). My dad's side, although largely Muslims who had immigrated to the US from Lebanon and Syria, had mostly converted to Christianity, so that's why we went to church instead of mosque. Even so, those in our family were always compassionate conservatives - which I'd describe here as fiscal and environmental conservatism, working for and giving to charity when possible to help those less fortunate, don't-ask-don't-tell on interracial marriage (oh, the irony) and homosexuality, and live and let live on most other things.

As a result, I'm half Lebanese and I grew up going to Vacation Bible School in the summers and then to Christian summer camps in Ohio with my cousins, and I was in all of the chummy-with-Jesus groups in HS; FCA, Young Life, etc. Of course, we all loved conservatism, Reagan, traditional values, etc., which made our parents very happy. In college, I even drove all the freakin' way to Charlotte with my girlfriend at the time to Independence Arena in '92 to see Reagan stoop for HW Bush on his "win one for the Gipper" tour.

As many on here have mentioned, I started realizing that once I got out into the world (I'd also been fortunate enough to travel to England, Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, and not for spring break either), it and its people were very different than my upbringing otherwise suggested. I had more empathy for those who were not like me and not from my middle-class upbringing.

I know it's a long post so I'll wrap it up - the Iraq war was the breaking point for me. I was outraged by 9/11 as was everyone else, yet I was strongly against the war and I unregistered as Republican as a result. I am still currently unaffiliated. Would have voted for McCain in 2008 had he not chosen Sarah "Trump Beta-Testing" Palin as his running mate, and I liked Obama. Haven't voted for a Republican nationally since then and I will continue not to as long as they continue this unambiguous descent into fascism/authoritarianism.

And alarmingly unnecessary cruelty.
 
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Now Part Two: What role did Carolina play in your leaving behind the GOP? Maybe it was when you were attending undergrad or professional school? Maybe it was reflecting back on things studied and learned during your matriculation? Maybe it was simply due to skills and ways of seeing cultivated at Carolina that finally came to fruition? Maybe by your judgment, Carolina had nothing to do with it?
 
Well, I'll go first...

Obviously by my personal story already posted, I've never been a Republican nor a conservative, having been most influenced growing up by my New Deal Deddy's worldview.

Carolina did certainly broaden my horizons politically as I learned a good deal more about the nuances of conservatism from Burke to the stands taken by the UNC College Republicans of my campus days. As I gravitated toward studying Latin America I also learned a good deal about the Left and realized that the Democratic Party and the centrism there was pretty dissatisfying to me. So, while I did work for and support Democrats over the years, only on the three occasions mentioned earlier have I voted FOR a candidate of that party, rather my vote is cast as effectively as I can reckon against the conservative running.
 
As I didn't attend UNC I have nothing to post from that perspective.

But, college did help to broaden my views. At one point i believed in the idea that there were too many unnecessary classes in college. I felt that we should focus on the curriculum that was directly related to our degree subject. Only later in life did I realize the importance of those other classes in building a foundation for understanding and thinking.

But there is a connection for me to UNC, that I will be eternally greatly for. Many of you know if my families struggles with mental health issues. When that first started my family recieved so much support from people who's only connection to us was that we were all Carolina sports fans. That support opened my eyes in many aspects and is part of who I am today.
 
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korgguy1971 said:
[...] the Iraq war was the breaking point for me.
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I didn't put this in my post, but the Iraq War was a major breaking point for me, as well.

Even if you believed what the Bush Administration was saying about Iraq (I didn't), it still didn't justify the proposed invasion & regime change. It was also obvious that the impetus for invading Iraq wasn't any then-current threat they posed and it was equally obvious that we were abandoning addressing the folks behind 9/11 to focus on Iraq. All in all, it was an obviously terrible decision from my perspective.

And because it was so terrible, it tore away a lot of my remaining emotional affiliation with the Republican Party.
 
donbosco said:
Now Part Two: What role did Carolina play in your leaving behind the GOP? Maybe it was when you were attending undergrad or professional school? Maybe it was reflecting back on things studied and learned during your matriculation? Maybe it was simply due to skills and ways of seeing cultivated at Carolina that finally came to fruition? Maybe by your judgment, Carolina had nothing to do with it?
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I went to Carolina for undergrad.

I mentioned this in my post, but Carolina was the first inflection point for me away from the Republican Party. It happened in a number of ways...

- I learned things in class that undercut my small town NC worldview. A lot of this was more about religion than politics, specifically, but the two topics were very connected to me and so changing my religious understanding affected my political understanding. It also opened the door for me to realize how limited the understanding of religion, politics, and the wider world was for many in my hometown.

- I met folks who were very different than the fairly homogeneous background from my hometown. And, in some cases, these were people that had been demonized by some combination of my small town upbringing plus conservative media. Once I got to know folks that I'd previously not been around, I learned that, despite our differences, they were people just living life and wanting to succeed and not the horrible folks they'd been made out to be.

- Exposure to a more diverse, multicultural environment in which folks typically got along (by choice and by necessity) despite differences in the people themselves. While this one is a bit more generic, being in Chapel Hill allowed me to see that folks and society could be just fine, if not do very well, by respecting peoples' differences and creating a "society" where those differences could exist and thrive rather than be condemned and punished. It was also interesting for me to see that in places like CH, it was the religious conservatives who were often the ones upsetting the societal equilibrium rather than those who were not religious conservatives doing so like it had been in my hometown. Seeing diverse groups of folks essentially getting along despite their differences while seeing the repercussions of religious conservatism on the overarching social equilibrium really forced me to question my assumptions brought with me from my small town experiences.
 
donbosco said:
Now Part Two: What role did Carolina play in your leaving behind the GOP? Maybe it was when you were attending undergrad or professional school? Maybe it was reflecting back on things studied and learned during your matriculation? Maybe it was simply due to skills and ways of seeing cultivated at Carolina that finally came to fruition? Maybe by your judgment, Carolina had nothing to do with it?
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Never went to UNC, only 1 year of college for me. But I’d say UNC had an impact on me by watching all you assholes argue lol. Proud dad though my son moves in to Craig on Friday!!!
 
Extreme oversimplification, but the two main factors that drive Republicans away from the GOP are:

(1) faith
(2) education

The two main factors that keep people affiliated with the GOP are:

(1) fear
(2) stasis

When people of faith look beyond dogma and examine the world as it actually exists, and their ancient wisdom teachings, they're highly likely to abandon the GOP.

Likewise, when people receive a sufficient level of education to understand the world not as a place to fear, but as a place to find joy and fulfillment, they're highly likely to abandon the GOP.

Those who remain in the GOP tend to be either first-order thinkers, or just fundamentally selfish.
 
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