I Did Not Leave Conservatism. I Left the Chaos.

I was raised Republican. In my house politics was never performative. We talked about work and responsibility. We talked about honesty and integrity, the value of keeping your word. We talked about being careful with money because every dollar represented someone’s time. We talked about treating people with respect, including the people you disagreed with. We did not sit around the dinner table arguing about cable news talking points and idolizing leaders. Looking back, I realized something important. My family pressed values on me around that dinner table, values I once associated with the Republican Party.

The Republicanism I Inherited

Growing up, The Party felt grounded in a simple idea: we are all responsible for something. Responsible for our families. Responsible for our communities. Responsible for the way we speak to other people. Being conservative, at least the way I understood it, was not about being harsh. It was about being steady. It meant you tried to live within your means. You did not waste. You did not expect someone else to clean up your mess. You helped your neighbors because they were your neighbors, not for the recognition. Even patriotism, in that version, was quiet gratitude. It was not loud. It was duty. It was showing up and doing what needed to be done. Those were not “political” lessons in my house; they were life lessons. For a long time, the Republican Party felt like a natural political home for those life lessons.

When Outrage Became the Point

Over the years, something shifted. The party started to feel less like a place built around responsibility and more like a place built around resentment. Not everyone, not everywhere, though it became hard to ignore. Outrage became a strategy instead of a warning sign. You could feel it in the way people talked. Less curiosity, more certainty. Less persuasion, more performance. Less concern for the neighbor down the street, more suspicion of anyone who did not pass an identity test. Our politics became national, then tribal, then constant. Every issue turned into a fight for survival. Every disagreement became a moral verdict. Once you train people to see politics as war, you train them to see their neighbors as threats. That is not the dinner table I grew up at. That is not the kind of conservatism that taught me to be humble with power and careful with words. Anger does not make room for people; it only makes room for targets. A party that needs you angry all the time cannot be a welcoming party.

What I Refuse to Pass On

I am a Navy veteran and a dad. I have three young daughters. That changes how you see everything, including politics. When you are raising kids, you start paying attention to what you are normalizing. You notice what you are excusing. You notice what you are rewarding. In my house growing up, character mattered. If you acted wrong, you did not get a free pass because you were on the “right team.” You were expected to own it, apologize, and do better. Somewhere along the way, too many leaders started asking good people to accept behavior they would never accept from their own children, their own coworkers, or themselves. They started acting like loyalty was more important than integrity. Winning became more important than truth. Power does not carry responsibility for your neighbors.  Cruelty is strength. I cannot teach my daughters these lessons. I cannot model it as I cannot and do not live with them. When people ask why I left the Republican Party, my answer is simple and true. I did not leave my values; I left a political culture that stopped respecting them.

The Same Values, A Party That Fits

I know there are good people in the Republican Party. I know there are conservatives who feel homeless right now, who miss politics that felt neighborly, steady, and decent. I also know this is not just a Republican problem. Our whole country is being pulled toward the loudest, harshest version of itself, because outrage is easy, profitable and addictive. But we are not helpless. We can demand better from leaders. We can reward honesty over showmanship. We can stop treating disagreement as a reason to dehumanize someone. We can treat each other as neighbors. The values I learned at my dinner table still matter to me. Responsibility. Restraint. Respect. Community. Keeping your word. I believe in those values. I just no longer believe the Republican Party, as it operates today, consistently stands for them. The simplest way to say it is this. The values I learned at the dinner table did not change, but the political home that once felt like a natural match for those values did. I still believe in personal responsibility, in being careful with taxpayer money, and in the idea that strong families and strong communities are built by people who show up and do their part. I also believe in treating people with dignity, in protecting basic rights, and in rejecting the kind of politics that someone needs to look down on for strength. Today, the Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is the place where those values can live together for me.  A party that values differences and respects tradition without turning my neighbors into enemies. It fits the way I was raised to think about character, responsibility, and community, and that is why I am a Democrat now.