I was a Republican until Donald Trump hijacked my party

| May 24, 2017

John J. Pitney, Jr., a PoliSci professor at Claremont McKenna College wrote an opinion piece in USAToday entitled “I was a Republican until Donald Trump hijacked my party” in which he tries to prove that a professor in a California college could be a Republican. I’m sure that, given enough time and proper motivation, I could probably prove otherwise. If Mr Pitney was happy with the Republican Party of 2006, I’m glad he’s gone.

Until last year, I was as Republican as you could get. My family had belonged to the GOP since the 1850s, and both my grandfathers labored in local Republican politics. I started volunteering for the party nearly a half century ago, handing out Nixon pamphlets in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at the age of 13. I went on to work for Republican politicians in the New York State Legislature and both houses of Congress. And for a couple of years, I served in the research department of the Republican National Committee.

But early in the morning of Nov. 9, shortly after Trump claimed victory in the presidential election, I took out my laptop and changed my registration to independent.

Yeah, well, I changed my registration to “Independent” years before when the Republicans started acting like Democrats while they ran the Congress. When they began telling us about “compassionate Conservatism” and spent like drunken sailors while feathering their own political nests instead of slashing wasteful spending. While I’m not particularly enamored with the Trump Administration, at least his policies have a basis in Conservatism, even though that isn’t his political stance. He ran on a platform of smaller, less intrusive government and that’s what put him in office.

I’m not surprised that a California professor liked a more liberal Republican Party, but you’d think he’d be smart enough to not make himself a target with a disingenuous piece of trash like the one he allowed USAToday to publish.

I don’t disparage those who voted for Trump. Economic change has left millions of working Americans behind. They think that an increasingly affluent professional class pushes them around. Voting for Trump was a way to push back. I get it. My father was a milkman in a college town. It was full of people with advanced degrees who looked down on people like us.

So now he’s one of the snooty pointy-headed residents of his hometown looking down on the rest of his, as if him dumping a bunch of words on paper is going to shame us into voting for the next Democrat statist to run for the office.

Kneeling to Trump, some [Republicans] are reversing long-held positions.

While opposing Trump, some faux-Republicans are ignoring the policies that Republicans traditionally represented. They don’t like his hair, they don’t like his super-model wife, they don’t like the way he talks, all the while ignoring what he’s saying…ignoring what Americans are saying. That’s why they will lose again in two years and four years down the road of this journey – the American Experiment.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

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Graybeard

To professor John J. Pitney, Jr.:
Trump did not hijack the Republican Party.
Those of us who believe in the principles for which the Republican Party purportedly stands took the blamed thing back from wussy PoliSci/elitist types who forgot why they were elected.

Go get an overprices latte and a bagel and learn to think it through, professor.

Azygos

I’ve seen no evidence that the Invertebrate Party in Congress (Senate) have attempted to act in any way as the Republican Party. They are as others call them The Republican Wing of the Democrat Party.

Graybeard

I offer as a gleam of hope my Senator, Ted Cruz.

Chris

You’re right Azygos. I will take it a step further though. Not only is there no evidence of them attempting to act in any way Republican but, frankly, there is really no evidence for them acting, at all.

This issue has become even more glaringly obvious now with Trump in office as they simply cannot keep up with his pace and, in some cases, have actively worked against core values of the party such as McCain which really has been eye opening.

They let Obama put into place so many of the current traps that Trump is navigating daily and they did so when the Republicans had both houses and could have easily blocked him on many of his poor decisions. So they not only failed to act a certain way but as far as I am concerned I didn’t notice much of anything to begin with.

Trump has presented them with the most golden of opportunities they have likely ever experienced in their office and yet they still drag ass when we could have so many issues that have needed to be handled for years finally handled. It’s really aggravating actually.

desert

Amen…hey prof..go back to being a dumocrap..and worship at the clinton’s evil, lying, thieving, pedophile throne of perversion..you will fit right in and be much happier there!

Silentium Est Aureum

Newsflash:

NOBODY at Claremont-McKenna is a Republican, let alone a conservative.

Sgt Fon

it’s funny, my politics have never gone farther then who supports the 2nd Amendment. as a member of the military i never mad enough to worry about taxes health insurance or the like. sometimes things happened that were good ( more funding for the military meant that we went from open squad bays to 3 man rooms) or bad ( Obama pulling us out of Iraq way too soon) but being sworn to protect and defend the constitution of the US and the Republic it formed always caused me vote for who gave me the most support under 2A.

at 50, retired for 5 years now with a home i still feel the same way. i am by no means rich, i don’t mind paying the school tax because i know the quality of student my little town produces ( +70% go on to collage with 62% graduating) or my property tax (never have had to wait more then an hour after a snow storm to be plowed out) so i still vote for the person that is willing to vote for the 2nd Amendment, the one that protects all the others amendments our founding fathers put in place…

Ex-PH2

His daddy was a milkman? Really? I would love to call hooey on that, because doorstep delivery of dairy products and eggs ended in the 1960s when self-service at grocery stores became popular, and refrigerators increased drastically in size and had freezer compartments, to accommodate larger volumes of purchased food.

So what did his daddy do when the dairy van was taken away? Deliver beer, maybe?

That’s a lame way to try to garner sympathy from his audience. What a W-H-I-N-E-R!!!!

Fyrfighter

Not to disagree with your assessment of this clown Ex, but here in Colorado, Royal Crest Dairy still delivers milk, eggs, juice, etc, so while it is significantly less common today, it has not ended, at least not around here..

Former EM1/SS

Why would anyone believe a Moby post from a California professor? They really do believe we are dumber than dirt don’t they?

Hondo

Along with journalists, Academia sees themselves as “the American elite”. They truly feel that “we know what’s best – the rest of the country should ‘shut up and color’ while we tell them what to do”.

Last time I checked, that attitude didn’t go over too well with the average American.

In truth, Academia has no monopoly on intelligence. But many of them do seem to have a deficiency in the common sense department.

Atkron

Funny enough Academics are some of the first to be purged when the socialists/communists take over.

Useful Idiots was what Lenin called them.

MSG Eric

Hey, don’t start giving us reasons to agree to communism being implemented in America….

PFM

Even worse, a lot of them become the dictators. They know what is good for the commoners.

The Other Whitey

The Khmer Rouge didn’t send my Father-In-Law and his whole family to a death camp because he was anti-communist (which he still is) or because he was US-trained and fought against them (which he was and did). They did it because he is half-Chinese, is fluent and literate in both Khmer and French, and committed the unspeakable Crime Against the People’s Socialist State of teaching others to read and write.

AW1Ed

Learned long ago never to mistake education for intelligence.

Atkron

Gilligan says: Fuck Off Professor!

Dave Hardin

I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.

The Other Whitey

I’m a California native and lifelong resident thereof–SoCal at that! I’m pretty conservative overall. I’m registered as a Republican, though I have little use for 90% of the politicians who claim the same affiliation.

It’s true I don’t have the highest opinion of Trump. But I really hate RINOs. Like this guy, for example.

A Proud Infidel®™

He SAYS he used to be a republican. My response?

*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*
*BULLSHIT ALERT!*…

Deplorable B Woodman

I was good until I read “USA Today” at the top. A leftist bird cage liner if there ever was one. No Republican of any stripe would publish in the USA Today……but a stripe-hiding DildoCrat skunk would.

Casey

Counterfactual: Glenn Reynolds regularly posts editorials in USA Today.

Just sayin’…

2/17 Air Cav

He changed party the day after Trump won because Trump won. So what? So this. He didn’t change party when Trump won the Republican nomination. That would have been the time to do it, if he wanted to be taken seriously. After all, the party didn’t vote for Trump in the general election: the citizenry did. Some of us were registered Democrats, others Republicans and Independents, among others. But in the long campaign and primary season, it was chiefly Republicans who anointed Trump. So, for my money, the guy was a Trump hater before the election and he remains one today. His real beef, although he denies it, is with the American people.

UpNorth

The biggest clue that the professor is spreading bullshit. Thanks, 2/17. If he was that butt hurt, he would have left the day after Trump secured the nomination.

PFM

Wow, a guy from Saratoga Springs – not exactly the poorest town in the state, and dangerously close to the cesspool where the state politicians go to screw over the rest of us, known as Albany – is trying to show his blue collar roots? I guess he didn’t get out of town that much (other than to run away to California), because most of the other upstate cities and towns have taken a big economic hit in the last 30 years, and the entire state outside of the major urban areas is red. I drive around the state for a living, and I saw a hell of a lot more Trump signs on lawns than Hillary ones.

Green Thumb

Academia.

The last true refuge of a clown.

Sparks

And tenured libtard ass hats.

A Proud Infidel®™

“Government is the last refuge of the nincompoop.”

MSG Eric

Aren’t all universities in California required to have at least one registered Republican professor on staff for the whole affirmative action thing? So they can say they are non-partisan?

Looks like they’ll have to find someone else to become a registered republican on staff. I’m guessing it’ll be the professor who’s on vacation the day they decide.

OWB

OK, fine, Mr. John J. Pitney, Jr. Register however you want. I just don’t care how you label yourself politically.

Why is it important to you that you announce it?

IDC SARC

It’s probably a targeted statement to confirm his status as a minion and release his welcome aboard package from the Left.

MSG Eric

Tenure.

UpNorth

He had to do it, so he could be admitted to the professor’s lounge.

Sonny's Mom

And where was this “principled” guy, the night Heather Mac Donald came to speak at Claremont College?

rgr769

Real conservative Republicans in Commiefornia/Mexifornia are few and far between. This bastard is nothing but another progtard RINO, if he is actually a Republican party member. The only conservative college professor in Taxafornia I have ever heard of is Victor Davis Hansen.

timactual

One of the reasons I no longer consider myself a Republican is Republicans like Prof. Pitney. People who consider membership as a family tradition or social club or hobby rather than a serious political belief.

It’s so messy and noisy now, not calm and friendly like it was when, even when they won, Rep.s didn’t do anything Reppish.

timactual

To quote Cromwell;

“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Forest Green

This guy is a real POS. Does anyone here know the party affiliation of your Great2gandfather? I can trace my family line back quite away and nowhere can I consistently trace political party registration back that far. Republican Party was founded in 1854, his great2grandfather must have been a plank owner.

I’d have to see the registrations to belief this AH.

Sonny's Mom

“Republican as you can get”? Has a nice, hollow ring to it. Like Elizabeth Warren professing, “I’m Okie down to my toes.”

RGR 4-78

President Trump is truly bi-partisan in that he gives the titty twisted butt hurt to snowflakes on both sides of the isle.

Sparks

My suggestion is that the next thing he changes is his citizenship. France maybe?

AW1Ed

And Sparks wins the thread!

You may pick any prize from the second shelf.

*grin*

Stephen McCartney

I left the Republican Party 5 yrs ago and switched to Libertarian Party( pinched my nose for a while as I am pro-life and anti-drug). I just didn’t want to be represented by the RNC establishment and those permanently afflicted with “D.C. fever”. I am a “conservatarian”..as I voted easily for Donald Trump. So far I think he is doing a good job. I love watching the Dems go into spasm I just want Trump to do what he said.
CAPT Bones USN (ret)

11b-mailclerk

Sometimes, it seems like we have a one party progressive state, the “boots on your face party”. There is a left boot and a right boot, and we argue endlessly over which boot gets the current turn where, to step or stamp, as may be also argued.

I would like to found a national “y’all go pound sand” party, ruthlessly leaving people be.

A man can still dream…..

DaveP.

The current Ryan budget gives federal tax dollars to Planned Parenthood to fund abortions, preserves Obamacare funding, but cancels out all money for a border wall. In past years, Ryan and the Congressional Republican caucus have passed every single budget item the Obama administration has sent him.
Tell us again how it was Trump who ruined the Republican party, Professor.