I think back to a time when I considered myself to be a political moderate. I referred to myself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. But I was never extreme in my political views.
That said, the passage of time and changing circumstances have altered my perspectives, changed the way I see the world and myself within the world.
I’ve witnessed many very disturbing changes in the Republican Party over the past twenty or so years. I wrote a little about it last Friday in this post. The party has moved so far to the right and is passing or supporting draconian laws that eliminate or reduce the rights of so many citizens. And it’s inexplicable support for a con man, an indicted criminal, and a wannabe dictator who has openly laid out plans that would turn the United States from a democratic republic to an autocratic theocracy, has caused my political views to have shifted from moderate and relatively centrist to much further to the left.
Still, I don’t think it’s because my views and perspectives have changed all that much. It’s more of a reaction or response to the shift in the Republican party to the far right and to the extreme actions the GOP and Donald Trump have taken in order to hold on to power.
This, That, and the Other 
I was watching my favorite TV channel on this subject and one of the guests remarked in so many words that DJT has done more to enlighten us about the Constitution than anyone else.
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That’s because everything he does and wants to do is unconstitutional.
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I was never interested in politics till Bush won the hanging chad election and I realized that I needed to pay attention to what was going on.
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The last few years have definitely changed my opinion about the importance of local politics. Every election matters!
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I have been shocked by how quickly the Overton Window has shifted in our times.
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Trump’s 2016 election with did it.
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I think it was before that. The racism really ramped up during the Obama presidency.
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Yes, that’s true, but Trump’s “Birther” schtick added fuel to the fire. Still, the racism wasn’t as much in the open and as blatant until after Trump became President.
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I had a smoldering anger for the fact I could tell Obama was conservative — or a so-called moderate, which is conservative, as this was while I was shifting more left and simultaneously realizing the social issues are largely distractions to facilitate the powerful picking everybody’s pockets — but he still garnered the stupid so-called conservative accusations of being this, that, and the other thing. To me, it looked like plain racism… or playing that “game” for gain. I decided Republicans are terrible. And then when Obamacare passed and pregnancies had to be covered by insurance and pro-life people complained… they confirmed they were evil, evil people. Next, Trump started in at him about a birth certificate in 2011.
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I saw what you saw.
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Thanks for saying so, XINGFUMAMA. It’s warmly reassuring not being alone in it.
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Growing up we were “Rockefeller” Republicans. My firs active camapigns were leafletting for Republican candidates. But by ’64 I was too far to the left for my parents. Nixon went beyond the Pale for my Dad after Watergate, and he stopped talking politics with me. Thanks to T-rump I have shifte back from being moderate to my old stomping grounds on the left.
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Trump has driven a lot of us former centrists much further to the left.
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