Why I Quit My Life as a Republican

Growing up, politics never really played an important part of my life. I remember being captivated by an incident that I witnessed when I was fourteen and hanging out at the park-a family arguing loudly about the war in Iraq and how well or how terribly they thought George W. Bush was doing. I turned to my mother and said, "Why don't you ever talk about politics?" She just laughed, but it was events like these that finally ignited my inner passion for government and everything about it.

At fifteen, I decided that I was very Republican. Of course, I did not realize that there were more than two major political parties. Still, I was admittedly conservative in my beliefs. It was mainly regarding the economy (I was adamant about social security needing reformed), but I also believed that welfare and social services were crooked and definitely needed a brushing through with a flea comb.

Still being in high school and being terribly bored with my easy schoolwork, I threw myself into political activism. I joined every single organization that I possibly could; anything with a reference to Republicans or conservatives or Grand Old Party, I was in it. There was one group in particular that I was very active in, and I even almost met Dick Cheney! (Basically, we got there just as his party was leaving the rally. It was devastating!)

Once I graduated high school, I decided that I wanted to go all the way and actually be a politician. I started at a local university with a major in history and political science. All of my older Republican colleagues smiled down upon me, proclaiming that I had a bright future ahead of me. I lapped it all up like a kitten to tuna juice. Yes, life was good.

But then, things started to slowly change.

At first, it was small stuff that really had little effect on me. A few people asked if I might be Libertarian instead of Republican. This was because I had always been more fiscally conservative than socially conservative. I was on the fence about abortion, I did not believe that prayer should be allowed in schools (in fact, I am agnostic), and while I did not exactly support it, I was not vehemently against gay marriage.