I didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me,
I can remember saying those exact same words a decade ago at dinner with a friend. This is not the GOP of Dwight Eisenhower, who created NASA and demanded it be under civilian control, invested in computers, and launched the Interstate Highway system. It is not the GOP of Richard Nixon, who created OSHA, the EPA, and opened a relationship with China. This is not the GOP of Teddy Roosevelt, who created the National Park Service and set aside millions of acres of public land for parks and conservation.
This is not the pragmatic, forward-looking, realist GOP of a generation ago. This is the corrupt and predatory GOP of an oligarchy, and it is sustained by the ignorant and enraged base it feeds upon.
I disagree with some of Kasich’s policy prescriptions, but he is decent-minded and not insane — and in the contemporary GOP, that’s saying something.