Metamorphosis

Confessions of an ex-Republican.

April 5, 2025

I have been writing this essay off and on for the last ten years and I have been looking for an opportunity to present it as a finished product. This Saturday morning seems like the right time to do that. At that time my wife and I will be driving to Albany, NY, to stand in protest of the Trump administration’s destructive policies, with what I hope will be hundreds of thousands of likeminded angry citizens in cities all around the country. I am also looking at this event as the culmination of a personal political journey that I began over fifty years ago. If anyone had told me back in the 70’s that in 2025 I and a carload of friends would be driving to Albany to march in an anti-administration protest in solidarity with a group like Indivisible, I would have laughed in disbelief. But here we are. The journey is complete.

Readers might be very surprised to hear that my formative years were spent deeply engaged in conservative Republican politics. At Queens College in 1970, I volunteered with the campaign of Conservative Party candidate, Jim Buckley, who was running to represent New York as Senator. Buckley, the older brother of William F. Buckley, became the first third party candidate elected to the Senate from New York. In the late 70’s, as a young stockbroker with Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith, I fervently believed in the benefits of the supply side economic policies of Republican conservatives, which supported the free-market principles that supported American business, and, I fervently hoped, my new career. I felt so strongly about the merits of our arguments that I served as a Republican party committeeman and as campaign chair for a Republican mayor.

The Republican politics of the 1970’s and 80’s was not as polarized as it is today. The tent was bigger, with plenty of room for environmentalists and social progressives like me. We were called Rockefeller Republicans or Northeast Republicans or New England Republicans, but we were Republicans, and proud of it. And then we weren’t. I don’t remember exactly when things started to change, but I do know that Republican party platforms changed enough over time that I no longer felt at home. The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate was, I think, the proverbial final straw. I do have a sense of humor—but there is a time and a place.

Fifty years ago, the Democrat and Republican parties were primarily defined by their constituencies: Republicans were the party of business, and the Democrats were the party of labor. Republicans stood for lower taxes, free trade (emphasis on free trade), balanced budgets, and fewer regulations on business. Democrats stood for worker’s rights and benefits for the American burgeoning middle class and those who aspired to it. Social and environmental issues were straddled and often embraced by both parties. The Environmental Protection Agency was created by Republican Richard Nixon. It was a Democrat, Bill Clinton, who vowed to “end welfare as we now know it.” Many “social” issues were considered too contentious for inclusion in party platforms, and in my parents’ home were not considered polite conversation. Things like abortion and gay rights were just not talked about. Our gay neighbors across the street were “confirmed bachelors”, according to my mother. I have no idea what she thought about Liberace, her favorite entertainer.

Today’s Republican party no longer seems to stand for much of anything, although the list of things that they are against is getting longer and longer. Our President calls the press “the enemy of the people”, openly calling out specific media organizations at public rallies—and Republican leadership says nothing. The President implements tariffs and trade barriers, in blatant contravention of every Republican party platform since the great depression and the Republican leadership says……. nothing. Add a trillion dollars to the deficit to finance a corporate tax cut? No problem for this Republican party, the same party that wanted to shut down the government not too long ago for contemplating any increase in the federal deficit.

My Republican party was the party of fiscal discipline. And then they weren’t. Today’s Republican party has been totally coopted by lobbyists whose loyalties lie with the agendas of the religious right, the NRA, and, most importantly, a donor class of billionaires that protects its own personal financial interests. The overwhelming majority of voters and even a majority of NRA members favor some kind of reasonable oversight for gun ownership, particularly background checks for new purchasers. This Republican party will not allow any of these proposals to even come up for a vote. In 2007 and 2008, we watched the world financial system literally come to the brink of collapse, causing the “Great Recession”. Sensible regulations that were then put in place to limit speculation and protect consumers and investors are now derided as unnecessary “job killing” regulations. Once again, the lobbyists win, the consumer loses.

Donald Trump’s Republican party, more cult than political party, is as morally bankrupt as its leader. Republicans will look back and see that they were on the wrong side of history with their current campaigns to restrict voting rights, to restrict immigration, especially refugees that desperately need our help, running to escape conditions that we were often complicit in creating. The party is openly hostile to women’s reproductive rights and gender equality. Now the Supreme Court has joined in the fray, with rulings stripping women of abortion rights while putting a President beyond the reach of the law with blanket protection to conduct his affairs without fear of prosecution. I shudder at the thought of what will happen in this current Trump administration if we do not curb his authoritarian anti-democratic policies in the midterms.

Today’s Republican Party is unrecognizable to Republicans of my generation. Witness the party’s complete about face regarding all of the environmental protections advanced since Nixon created the EPA. Republicans seem to no longer accept science, period. Trump actually believes (or says, who knows what he actually believes) that climate change is “a hoax”. Republican initiatives now focus on dismantling not only environmental safeguards that have been in place for years, but in dismantling the EPA itself. National parkland protections are being reversed, along with countless sensible environmental initiatives like emission standards and minimum gas mileage for automobiles. None if this should come as a surprise, coming from a party leader that believes “clean coal” is actually a viable energy option and that re-opening coal mines is economic progress. Republicans as a group refuse to accept that we can affect climate change. Many Republicans refuse to accept that climate change even exists. What thinking, rational person can continue to support such an anti-science platform?

Admittedly, as the Republican party was moving to the right, I was personally moving gradually to the left. We are all creatures born of our own personal experiences, and mine led to a more progressive viewpoint on many issues, contrary to what is typical of most people who become more conservative as they get older. Forty years in finance taught me that regulations are generally put in place for a reason, and as a rule, consumers and investors need more protections, not less. The financial meltdown and subsequent economic and market collapse of 2008 was proof enough and is seared in my memory, but today’s Republican Congress seems to have forgotten staring into that abyss, as they attempt to eliminate regulations that were put in place to prevent a reoccurrence of that global panic. We are destined to go through it again at some point.

My life has also been blessed with many wonderful relationships, with lots of friends of myriad flavors and persuasions and accents. Those friends have taught me much—that straight couples have no advantage over their gay and lesbian counterparts in raising happy well-adjusted children, nor do they have any monopoly on the secrets to a happy relationship. Here again the religious right has undue influence over Republican party politics, keeping Republican party positions decidedly on the “straight” and (very) narrow, as the vast majority of the country has moved on to accept that love is love—and mind your own business.

The Republican party and I came to a final parting of the ways in 2008, when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate instead of Joe Lieberman, an independent who was under consideration at the time. The party no longer represented my values – on economic or on social issues. The ascendance of the new Republican politics of Donald Trump has only served to strengthen my conviction that I made the right choice. The Republican party no longer stood for the economic discipline they had long championed. Witness the sham of a “tax reform” bill that was passed in 2017, padding the coffers of corporations and major Republican donors, while doing absolutely nothing for working families and adding over a trillion dollars to the deficit. The extension of that legislation, currently under discussion in Congress, will only compound the problem, exacerbate the deficit, and shovel more money to the wealthy donors entrenched at Mar-A Lago. Trickle-down economics at its finest.

My years of economic observation have also led to the conclusion that trickle down, “supply side” economic initiatives do not work. It has taken much too long—decades, and we are still waiting—for economic stimulus favoring top earners, ostensibly the “job creators”, to trickle down to the people that really need it. Meanwhile the .1% continue to amass fortunes of unconscionable size. People of my generation who already owned their own homes and had accumulated savings in their retirement accounts have benefited from the run-up in financial assets—stock and real estate—but the flip side of that story is that home ownership is now out of reach for younger couples in many communities, and they had little or no savings to benefit from escalating equity prices over the last twenty years. They are upset, disillusioned, and looking for solutions. Trump is a master at pointing out their problems. He is less skilled at offering solutions so he just blames “others”, immigrants, minorities, gay and trans people, and of course, Canada. It’s all their fault, according to Trump. I have to admit, nothing the man does should surprise me, but he got me with Canada. Who knew? They were the enemy.

Democrats have had better economic alternatives, but the message failed to get through. Instead of giving the top .1% tax breaks like carried interest and waiting for that money to trickle down to working families, let’s raise the national minimum wage and let the economy “percolate up”. I do not buy the Republican argument that since the top .1% are the job creators, tax breaks for them will ultimately benefit working class families. If you give a billionaire a $1 million dollar tax break, it will not change their spending habits or lifestyle one bit. If instead you give $1,000 to one thousand working families—the same $1 million—it goes right back into the economy, because they buy a dishwasher, or a refrigerator, or put a down payment on a car. Focusing economic policy on the millions of working class families instead of the wealthy is a much more efficient and effective way to expand the economy. These are Democratic party principles, not Republican. Democrats have to find a better way of articulating that message in the next election. More importantly, if someone works all day at their job - and sometimes two jobs - they deserve the dignity of paying for their groceries without using food stamps. A federal minimum wage that is an actual living wage should be part of the Democratic message. If our hamburgers costs an extra 50 cents, so be it.

As our federal courts and Congress have drifted to the right, what happens at the state level has become critically important. Things that we once took for granted – public park lands, clean air, clean water, workers’ rights, women’s reproductive rights, voters’ rights, a census that represents all residents – all are now in jeopardy. Decisions on Congressional redistricting are made at the state level. Who do we want to oversee drawing those district border lines? The Supreme Court, whose make-up, including one blatantly stolen seat, now leans decidedly right. They will increasingly allow the individual states to make judgements about discrimination masquerading as “religious freedom”, firearms legislation, and how minorities and immigrants are treated, and now critically, who has abortion access in their own state. Who do we want to be making those decisions at the state level? Which party’s values most closely align with our values? I have no confidence that our current Republican New York State legislators would be able to withstand party pressure to vote the new MAGA Republican national party platform. As a New York north country resident, I felt it would be more effective to register as a Democrat, rather than as an independent, an alternative chosen by many disaffected Republicans. I wanted to have the opportunity to vote in a primary to choose a candidate, a privilege not available to independents in New York. Another reason, not often mentioned, is that New York State politics are dominated by the Democratic Party, because of their lopsided registration in New York City. Republican State Senators and Members of the Assembly have little input over legislation in Albany. Any bills or initiatives that they might attempt to bring to the floor would not likely advance because of a Republican’s minority party status. Having a Democrat in that office should lead to more effective local representation, as long as the representative in that position is qualified and reflects your values.

I have three criteria for a political candidate:
1. Are they qualified (by experience, intellect, temperament) for the position?
2. Does the candidate share my values?
3. Are they an honorable person?

The decision to oppose Donald Trump was an easy one. He fails on all three counts.

A bigger, longer term issue for me is that I am losing confidence in the viability of the two party system in the United States. It is no longer working. Not only did the Founding Father’s not contemplate two competing political parties (none are mentioned in the Constitution) but George Washington warned against them in what we now refer to as his Farewell Address:

A political party….”serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

What the Constitution did prescribe was a tricameral system of government which would inherently provide checks and balances among the three branches. Each branch was intended to provide a check against the others. That is not at all what we have now. No one foresaw a Congress whose only allegiance was to their respective political party and the party leader, as opposed to the people—of both parties—that they are supposed to be representing. The result is what we are dealing with now: a Congress controlled by one party, such as it is, that takes its marching orders from the White House, with absolutely no oversight or counterbalance to the President’s authoritarian and legally questionable edicts. “Are they an honorable person?” keeps ringing in my ears. Character is destiny. The American experiment is in grave danger.

Trump’s initiatives during his first 100 days have far exceeded our worst fears. He has destroyed global allegiances and alliances, both economic and military. He has put the health and lives of everyone at risk and because of his appointment of Robert Kennedy to lead HHS, in imminent danger. Who appoints a vaccine skeptic to lead Health & Human Services, and just as importantly, how does a Senate confirmation process let this actually happen? Who discontinues a foreign aid program that was providing desperately needed medications to keep people alive all around the globe? Does the President think that the resulting outbreaks of disease will recognize borders when they get there? I could list many more senseless initiatives of this administration, starting with this week’s “reciprocal” tariffs and the ensuing global market collapse, vaporizing trillions (with a T) of dollars in market value. My favorite economist, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, asked this question after Trump announced his new tariffs.

PAUL KRUGMAN

Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy?

Trump’s tariffs are a disaster. His policy process is worse.

PAUL KRUGMAN

APR 03, 2025

I can add recent Republican attacks on the environment, clean energy initiatives, our children’s education, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the disruption of our global alliances, but I am sure that you have read enough of those stories already, just in the last week. It is time to let your voice be heard.

If you are paying attention (and if you read this far, I assume that you are) and you would like to voice your concerns about the state of our country, please join us in Albany, or at one of the hundreds of demonstrations that will be staged around the country today, April 5th. Additional north country events will be held in Saranac Lake, Elizabethtown, and Glens Falls. You can find an event near you here.

Remember the words of Martin Luther King: “Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter.”

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