For some of us, NO - Trump is not the reason we left the GOP. Trump simply affirms that our decision to dump the feckless party and move on was a wise and timely choice.
In my case, the years leading up to the 2014 midterms and ultimately the 2016 election were the last straw. The GOP proved they absolutely had zero intention to do anything they campaigned on except to hand Obama his agenda on a paid-for by taxpayer debt silver platter, give their base the middle finger, and adopt the Democrat agenda as their own to protect. They demonstrated they can and will go to vicious war against an actual Conservative to push an Establishment statist (McDaniels/Cochran anyone?) and treat rabid Leftists as equals while performing kabuki 'hearings' into treason and criminality while doing absolutely nothing about it beyond theatrics.
The "You are 100% with us or 100% against us" meme during elections by both GOP party hacks and later by Trump's fanatics made the schism permanent AFAIC.
Most of it actually is less about Trump and more about principles that are regarded as losers and therefore disposable for political pragmatism's sake or insoluble and resolute without any willingness to compromise on surrendering them. THAT is where the actual line in the sand and all the combat is actually centered. That Trump's fans now ridicule foundational moral principles with the same ferocity and contempt that the Godless Left does, simply confirms for people like me that what now exists in the GOP under Trump, are people who can care less about Liberty and more about lockstep loyalty to party and president. They want payback, retribution and revenge. They want a mob of unified True Believers, or they will count anyone else as an enemy. They would instill their own brand of tyranny if they could, and they have demonstrated the same disdain for political speech and opinions they disagree with as much as the Left has demonstrated.
I've given up on the Republican Party after slaving for it for two decades plus. They are hopelessly infiltrated with Democrats, corrupted and lost without any chance of redemption AFAIC.
My efforts, money and time are going to be spent elsewhere to support the cause that party has abandoned.
Any chance of getting along is going to lie in letting people be free to support whom they choose without being treated and labeled as an enemy of the people.
But I do not think that is going to happen when a whole bunch of people insist that the country is at stake and you are either 100% with them, or you are 100% an enemy. As long as that intolerant position dominates the discourse here and elsewhere - there is no chance of 'healing' the schism. It will be permanent.
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Beyond astounding the level of blather.
Our only principled conservative party, since founding,
was the Southern Agrarian & Rural Democrats of Henry,
Jefferson, Madison, Rutledge, Calhoun; among dozens.
Sadly the Civil War destroyed those aspirations and values.
The Republicans emerged as an anti-slavery party drawing
support from northern mercantile interests beginning
w/Fremont 1856.They never had anything to do
w/Principled Conservatism; NOT FOR A SINGLE DAY!!!!!
Lord have mercy.
