I was a Democrat a long time ago. Son of Democrats, my paternal grandfather was even a county chair in the party, a school board member, and got a Postmaster job through patronage back when they did that sort of thing. I became disallusioned with the Democrats in the early 1980s after trying to be both pro-life and a Democrat. It was an uphill battle for this party of tolerance to allow a pro-life person to be a delegate to county, district or state conventions. Those slots were for pro-choice people only. Ar least in Minnesota. I eventually left and joined the other party.
Your experience resonates with me. I actually registered as a Republican in 2005 when I was a senior in high school, and then in 2012 I switched. I never really identified with the "new democrats" though, I always favored classical democratic ideology, the pre-war democrats, if you will.
I've never been the activist type, so I never took a hard-and-fast position on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. Church teaching has really galvanized my positions though, and they're inconsistent with the democratic party. Plain and simple. I'm still not an activist, but I won't support anyone who opposes Church teaching.
Like you, I thought of myself as a pro-life democrat, but my democratic side stemmed from ideological positions on the environment, education, economics/trade, infrastructure, taxes, etc. I just couldn't justify 'tolerating' the idea that the rest of the party supported abortion and gay marriage while affirming the rest.
The thing is, I can't tolerate that the Republican party affirms traditional marriage and a pro-life position, but has starkly contrasting views on the other positions that I place a lot of value in.
So... I guess that leaves me as an Independent. Perhaps it's a bit idealistic and naive of me, but I really think the Millennial generation will be the one to break past the barrier and see a third party elected to the White House. A guy can dream, right?
It wasn't so bad being in the other party. Only occasionally do they manifest their desires to eat the poor. Overall they are an inefficient conglomeration of disparate interests who sometimes pull together. I was there because it was a pro-life party. At least they always paid lip service to pro-life issues even if they seldom actually managed to get anything done about it.
Recently I was supposed to go to a district convention and I found that I just couldn't do it with the party now a subsidiarity of the Trump Empire. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I just couldn't go. I didn't vote for Trump, but instead Evan McMullen.
I agree with this 100%. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primaries, but he was sandbagged by his own party, and there was no way I would've voted for Clinton. So I voted for Trump. I regret it, but I still don't regret
not voting for HRC. I just wish I would've cast my vote for someone like McMullen (admittedly I didn't know much about him and failed to do my due diligence during the election cycle).
The Democrats actually admitting that there is no room for a pro-life Democrat anywhere in the party started in Omaha, with a pro-life Democrat (sort of anyhow) running for mayor that the big guns in the Democratic party wanted to support. But NARAL and Planned Parenthood set them straight. There is NO ROOM AT ALL for a pro-life candidate at any level in any place in the Democratic Party. So the candidate for mayor had to pledge his undying support for abortion and the Democratic Party had to declare the obvious about how pro-life people need not apply.
I only heard about what Tom Perez said yesterday, and am pretty appalled. Even Nancy Pelosi was critical of his proclamation, which to me says a lot. I've been dragging my feet re-registering/unregistering from the party, but this is compelling me to act. I haven't supported the party at all since they nominated HRC, but this crystallizes things for me.
This should be the signal for the last pro-life Democrats to head for the door and not look back. Apparently before this announcement actually 23% of Democrats were pro-life. Afterwards? I suspect some of those 23% are like frogs in hot water, no longer able to jump out. But others could do so.
I believe you're right, anybody with a pro-life stance ought to distance themselves from the party now, it's just no longer going to be feasible to remain in the party. If anyone is like you and I who might have a mix of views, the only viable option seems to be to register as an Independent voter. And I think that's what Perez and his ilk want, he wants to purge the party of any hardcore pro-lifers and convert anyone who's on the fence.
We are in a strange moment in national political history. Hillary Clinton was the most astoundingly bad candidate in a long time. She damaged the Democratic brand badly. Donald Trump was only a bit less worse. The Republican brand is an unknown at the moment. This is a moment where a third and fourth party could make a go of it. I'm checking out the American Solidarity Party. Not sure they have the oomph to do anything, but their positions are good.
What's weird to me is that, given how bad of a candidate Clinton was, the party really isn't responding as radically as I thought they would to repairing their image, reaching out to the voters they alienated in the process, and promoting candidates that could legitimately unify the party, like Tulsi Gabbard. Instead they're just radicalizing themselves even further, to the point that they're virtually the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party on the spectrum.
The Republicans, if they want to survive beyond the Baby Boomer generation, need to do some self-reflection as well. They were pretty well fragmented over the nomination and election of Trump and remain so well into his presidency. They're not doing much to address the stereotype that they're the party of "rich old white men". I don't necessarily care, but when's the last time they put up a legitimate candidate who was under, say, 50-55? Someone rational, well-educated, who could contend with the academics on the left but also represented the wholesome values of the GOP? I don't know, most of the "young guns" I've seen on the right tend to be a little loose-wired.
I'm just counting the days when third parties rise in prominence. Like the American Solidarity Party which is basically a Catholic party for American voters, or rather, it's platform is generally based on Catholic values.