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The GOP Lost Me For Being Too Hateful And Eager To Engage In Bad-faith Rhetoric.
I grew up in Maricopa County. Mesa is the home of my youth, where I came of age and into my own from elementary school to college. Naturally, Mesa was also my cradle of political activism and civic involvement, the first place where I voted in a presidential election, and where, through church and school, where I found myself rooted deeply in the far right machine of political activism that swirled around the east valley of Maricopa County in the 90s. From my constitution-loving charter school education to my leadership role in my local college chapter of College Republicans, I was deeply entrenched and eager to make a difference for the conservative cause. My first job after high school was phone banking for Jeff Flake’s very first congressional run.
All along the way, it was ingrained in my bones that Republicans voted for morally upstanding individuals. The conservative movement stood for families, or so they said, and the political right did, in fact, have the corner market of religion and politics, or so they insisted. But with the hindsight of 2020, I can see that when they looked at the prospect of Trump in the face and deliberately tossed all of their deeply held beliefs under the bus in order to be a part of an unconstitutional power grab that has culminated this week — the week before the election —…
