Changed my party affiliation today after 25 years.
I don't know how all of you feel about Massie, but his loss yesterday hit me pretty hard, even though I'm a Missourian. There are no perfect politicians, just like there are no perfect people, but as far as I can tell, Massie was about as close to that as any politician can get next to Ron Paul, who had my support in the presidential primaries.
I've been a Republican since I was 18 years old. I've voted Republican 100% of the time. I joined the military 03-07 and that's when things started to not feel so right for me. When friends started getting hurt and dying, I started to think, what the fuck are we really fighting for?
I stuck to the party though, because I kept telling myself, they're better than the Democrats. For too long, I gave Republicans the benefit of the doubt. I was fooled for a very long time, unfortunately. I voted for Trump 3 times. Now that he's a lame duck, we can no longer deny that he's been a liar from the beginning. Campaigning on things that sound good to us, only to give us the middle finger once he's elected. Just like every other Republican.
I started seeing Massie as a very principled person. I checked his voting record. I agree with him most of the time. He gave me hope.
Yesterday, that hope took a big hit. I can no longer masquerade as a Republican. The only vote they get from me from now on is a vote of no confidence.
I've registered as a Libertarian. It's not much, I know. Libertarians have a long way to go in this rigged two party system, but I'm ready to give them my vote from now on.