At least one former Republican has finally had enough of his party after almost three years with President Donald Trump leading the nation to filth.
Twitter user Ryan Hussey, a self-described “older” millennial from suburban Kansas, penned a letter over the weekend to his congressional representatives, informing them that he is “relieved to say” he no longer considers himself a Republican. “To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement,” Hussey said in his opening paragraph.
He said that he had been a Republican since the day he cast his first ballot 17 years ago and that he thought that meant standing for “limited government, fiscal responsibility, market based policies,” a strong national defense, and support for free democracies around the world. “But in 2016, I witnessed my party begin the slow degradation of casting aside those values for the sole purpose of capitulating to the ego of a reality television host,” Hussey said.
Hussey wrote that Trump “boasted of the utility of trade wars, touted empty promises of curbing budget deficits, incited rising nationalism, and regularly elevated the declarations of authoritarianism over the voices of democracy.” With not a single lie told so far, Hussey explained that he’s registering as an unaffiliated voter and participating in the Democratic primaries moving forward. He called Republican congressional members’ handling of the impeachment probe into Trump the “straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.”
At the center of the probe is a July phone call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden. Hussey was particularly disturbed by day three of the public impeachment hearings, during which Republicans attacked witness Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, who testified that he thought Trump’s demand was “inappropriate.” In turn, Republican counsel Steve Castor implied that Vindman couldn’t be trusted because he had received a job offer from Ukrainians.
“I was disgusted to hear members of my former party challenge the patriotism of a career military veteran and intelligence officer simply because his testimony did not subscribe to their shallow narrative,” Hussey said. “I was enraged to hear conspiracy theories of ‘Ukrainian interference’ proffered like scripture, willfully ignorant of the fact that our intelligence community has debunked that theory as textbook Russian disinformation.”
Hussey wrote that his problems with the current administration started long before the impeachment probe and stem from Trump’s “refusal to condemn white nationalism” and “his expansion of policies permanently and intentionally separating children from their families immigrating through our southern border,” among other things. ”While the metaphorical straw of these past few weeks was not insignificant, in fairness, my camel was already carrying a particularly heavy load before the impeachment inquiry began,” he said.
He ended his letter by directly addressing the congressional members he voted for, Rep. Jerry Moran, Sen. Pat Roberts, and Rep. Sharice Davids, and by telling them he would no longer vote for Republicans who support the direction their party is going in. He concluded with a mic drop of sorts and a word to staff members who might read his exclamation of disapproval. He predicted that to those staff members, his opinion probably doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
“I would tend to agree with that assessment, except for one, slight, inescapable consideration—“ Hussey wrote. “—I am pretty damn sure that I am not the only one.”