After reading Michael Cohen’s column “It was all a lie” (Ideas, Aug. 2), about the recent book of the same name authored by former Republican political consultant Stuart Stevens, I am reminded of the saying, “I was a Republican until they lost their minds.” For me that was a long time ago. To quote the party’s 1968 campaign slogan, “Nixon’s the one!”
Growing up in mid-century New England, I revered such Republican senators as Leverett Saltonstall, Margaret Chase Smith, and my Vermont’s own George Aiken. But a few years later, as a college student who had come to question, and then oppose, the Vietnam War, I found myself increasingly demonized and driven away from the party—a process that only accelerated a couple of years later after I came out as gay.
In short, the Republicans under Trump have completed their years-long transformation into a party of Ayn Randian ideologues, racists, and tin-pot moralists who fail to practice what they preach.
Today’s Republican Party is irredeemable damaged goods. If this country is to have a conservative party, someone will have to start one under a new name. The scarlet letter “R” is radioactive.
John Kyper
Roxbury
Note from KBJ: You were never a Republican, John, so stop saying you were. You've always been a country-club liberal.
