My staunchly Republican wife is so outraged by Trump that she vows to vote "for every Democrat

[Aristus]

on the ballot in every election" until he is gone.

If she denies that this is a wholesale disavowal of the Republican party, I'll at least take the determination to promote Democratic candidates.

She is the most unlikely Republican imaginable, unless one calls her ( as I do ) an Eisenhower Republican. She despised George W. Bush, opposed the War in Iraq, supports strong gun control, and opposes the death penalty except in the most extreme circumstances. She voted for Barack Obama twice, and readily, if not happily, voted for Hillary Clinton.

She claims to oppose on religous grounds homosexuality and marriage equality, but it's really just lip service at this point. Her assistant at work is a lesbian, and Mrs. Aristus loves her and is fiercely protective of her. I pity the fool who tries to harass her assistant; he/she will live to regret it; you don't mess with Mrs. Aristus.

Anyway, if we had more Republicans like my wife, we might one day be able to re-establish a genuine opposition party; loyal, civil, good-hearted; just what democracy requires.

[vlyons]

1. You might suggest that she self-identify as an Independent

then she can calmly vote her conscious and split her ticket, if and as she sees fit. Also remind her that her vote is secret. So if any of her Republican friends ask her how she voted, she can tell them that she voted on a secret ballot.

[SharonAnn]

7. I was a Republican until Reagan, became Independent, then realized I supported only Dems.

I was more of an Eisenhower Republican and that is way left of today's GOP.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Good for your wife, my dear Aristus!

I wish there were many many more like her.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. My parents were that sort of Republican.

The old-school Eisenhower/Rockefeller types, pretty moderate, pro-choice (my mom was a nurse during the '40s and saw the results of some botched illegal abortions), not racist in any observable way, not fanatical about anything. We had more than a few arguments during the Vietnam era, and my dad didn't care much for unions (he was a corporate lawyer who had to do battle with them from time to time), but they'd have been appalled by Trump. My dad, who passed away in 2011, was horrified by Sarah Palin. I think they were Republicans because their parents were and it was sort of a family tradition in a way. I was the first Democrat on either side of the family - but they weren't nuts in those days. You could have rational, civilized arguments with GOPers then; that doesn't seem possible any more.

[3catwoman3]

4. Good on your dad. Anybody with a brain...

...was horrified by Sarah Palin.

My dad also died in 2011. He was a Republican, and a man of very few words. I naver asked him about why he was a Republican, and he probably wouldn't have answered me if I had. My soon to be 95 year old mom saw the blue light a few cycles ago.

I recently asked her if she thought Dad would have voted for Trump. She said he would not, under any circumstances, have voted for Hillary, but might have not voted rather than vote for Trump.

[LenaBaby61]

5. Well my friend ...

I'm HOPING that all of us who detest tRumputin CAN vote come 2018 and in 2020. They'll be even MORE voter suppression/voter disenfranchisement leading up to 2018 and into 2020 under a tRumputin DOJ. Crosschecking, voter purging on steroids for sure, and who KNOWS if a tRumputin DOJ will once AGAIN "allow" or "ask"the ruskies to interfere in the 2018 and 2020 elections? AG Jeff Sessions will do his BEST to make sure that POC, liberals/progressives/Dems are not allowed to vote or vote in much smaller numbers--do whatever he CAN in whatever capacity to stop people from voting. I hate sounding so gloomy but with the Muslim Ban, tRumputin's showing us that he doesn't really CARE what his fellow Americans think, and if those things weren't bad enough we have a mostly complicit corporate media who really hasn't stepped up to the plate to do investigative reporting. The GOP is no better. And even though there's friction between them and tRumputin which WILL get worse, they know that they need HIM as president so that they can further continue destroying this country. They've no morals or ethics either. Back to the russians, who knows what they have on the GOP--we pretty much know putin has something hanging over tRump's head.

OF course we must resist and fight because there are more of us than them, but it's stomach-turning to know that there will be A LOT of damage done to this country for generations to come (Draconian Supreme Court rulings) even if tRumputin doesn't last past what we know will be 4 horrible years of more than likely impeachable offenses he will commit.

To be living George Orwell's "1984" real time is just, just ...

Beyond belief.

[Cracklin Charlie]

6. My formerly Republican husband asked me yesterday...

Just where and when is the next women's march?

Next thing you know, he'll be asking me to knit him a hat.

I am so proud of him!

[brush]

8. If she voted for Obama twice and Hillary, why does she call herself a republican?

[Aristus]

9. It's more out of habit and self-identity at this point.

She's a conservative evangelical, but she's been trending to the left for years. When 'Republican' becomes part of your identity, it can be difficult to shake.

She was in a deep depressed daze for weeks when she found out that 81% of self-described evangelical Christians voted for Trump. She has unfriended Trump supporters on Facebook, and cut ties with friends and family members IRL who supported Trump.

It can be argued that the age-old Republican Party of Lincoln, TR, and Eisenhower was hijacked by right-wing extremists. I don't support that argument, since establishment Republicans never really fought that hijacking in any meaningful sense. And many embraced it. But there was a time in US history when the GOP was not a collection of raving lunatics the way it is now.