I started out life as a Democrat.
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EDIT
I see why now. One of my ignored posters made political comments to which you responded.
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My grandfather was a DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Minnesotan for 'Democrat') party boss in rural Minnesota. My father took me to precinct caucuses. I continued on my own in the ealy 1980's going to caucuses but ran into a sort of glass ceiling put in place to prevent pro-life people from having any real say in the party. They had mogrified away from being the party of Hubert Humphrey into something crazy liberal at their core.
So I think it was 1987 I walked out and joined that other party. They were actually far more open to someone who had not lost all of the old political positions of the Democrats. I ended up as an alternate to the state central committee and seated as a central committee delegate, got to grill some candidates for governor, had a good time, endorsed Michele Bachmann for school board at the very very start of her political career.
After a while I noticed that the Republicans seemed to want my votes, and to keep them they seemed willing to say all the right things on abortion but to do almost nothing when they had the power to do it. As long as they could keep me as a reliable voter they didn't so much care to actually be as pro-life as they said they were. Didn't make me happy to see that it was about obtaining and holding power. Not the 'happy warrior' view of a Hubert Humphrey. So I scaled back my involvement.
Today I am an uncomfortable Republican. They do not set my agenda. They have no lock on my vote. But that other party, the one I grew up in, has only very rare moments where I can agree with them. So I'm kinda stuck. I suppose I should have been a tenacious Democrat, fighting all the way for what I believed. Or, once switched, a tenacious Republican, fighting hard all the way for what I believe. Neither option seemed very appealing, being that much a political animal. I have chaired precinct caucuses and insisted that we were going to have pro-life resolutions before going home. But I just do not see politics as salvation.
The problem is when a party knows you have nowhere else to go.
I'm not sure why you posted your political testimony here. Since I started my party involvement working on a DFL campaign in 1964, I understand the party of Hubert Humphrey, from his 1948 speech on civil rights onward (I was a bit young and didn't her that one live). There were always Democrats to the left of Humphrey, especially in Minnesota. We need to remember that Humphrey was the right wing Democrat who kicked the communists out of the Democratic Party (before the Farmer and Labor parties would join them). So, the idea that Sanders is new is certainly not the case.
The core beliefs of what it means to be a Democrat and what it means to be a Republican have changed from the times of Goldwater and Humphrey in 1964. The Democratic Party lost its right wing in the South to the Republicans, primarily over civil rights. However, the core liberals who followed Humphrey, and the moderates who followed Bill Clinton are still there. The Republicans developed into the party of Reagan, and then Gingritch. Now, followers of both find it difficult to be nominated, because they are too moderate. Gingritch and Kasick were THE soldiers of the Republican revolution in the 90's (when Clinton was president). And the idea of Bush being too far left is just plain silly. But that's where the Republican Party is.
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If I might make a comment. Abortion is a terrible thing, always wrong. However, the government can do little to change the hearts of the people. The government can do what it can to reduce the number of abortions through the support of education, for money to support pregnant moms, and for a guarantee that a woman's job will be there when she returns to work. The Supreme Court has ruled. The restrictions on abortions continue to be passed. And that's great. So many Catholics left the party in 2000 when the Church appealed to its members to stay home or to vote for Bush, under threat of hell. We have lived with the consequences of that choice. The Church is more wise now. Pope Francis has asked for less emphasis on abortion (and gay marriage) as a political issue. There are many, many, many more important life issues and issues of morality. The pope and the US council of bishops has laid these issues out many times. A Catholic doesn't have to be part of a party whose top three issues are guns, abortion and gay marriage, rather than all those issues with which government action can be essential.
My plea/suggestion to you is to look beyond abortion and gay marriage. Look at the political ideas of the bishops and the pope (especially with regard to immigration, health care, climate change, bank regulation, minimum wage, gun background checks, the death penalty, and education. Then re-consider the two parties, especially the leaders. Then make a new, fresh, decision on which party is worthy of your moral and reasoned choice.
