I cast my first vote for President in 1988, for Michael Dukakis, after registering Democratic like my parents before me. Thinking back over the decades, I’m pretty sure I’ve voted Democratic straight down the line on every ballot since. Now and then I’ve been tempted by a Libertarian candidate, or a Green, but I never pulled the lever (or filled the oval, as the case may be). I’ve never voted Republican, ever – that’s for sure. Because a Democrat felt not just like something I was “registered as,” but something I was. And a Republican was the opposite: not me.
Last year something happened that made me think differently. My children’s school district had a teachers’ strike that lasted more than two weeks. It was terrible for the kids and for the parents and divided our small city. Our statewide elected officials, who could have intervened to help bring things to a faster and better conclusion, didn’t do so because they are Democrats who need the support of the powerful teachers’ union. One day I was complaining about it to a friend who said, that’s just politics. That kind of thing happens on both sides, with both parties. I knew that was true, but suddenly a light bulb went on. Democratic politics is just politics. It’s not who I am.
I’ve been reading for years about how our country is so polarized because we cluster together in communities of people who think the same way. I’ve been frustrated, as so many of us are, that every few years only a handful of “swing states” decide the Presidential election. But now I suddenly understood that my feeling that I “was” a Democrat was part of the problem. I also had an idea about what to do. I went online and in less than two minutes, switched my party registration from Democratic to Republican.
I told almost nobody about it. Two close friends I did tell respectfully but strongly disapproved. I felt some comradery in the fall, when a teenaged poll worker I know told me that a suspiciously high number of cool-looking Republicans, many with tattoos and brightly colored hair, showed up to vote for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. (I voted for her too, and she won the town I live in resoundingly, though Trump won Massachusetts overall.) But I didn’t switch parties just to vote for Haley, and I don’t intend to switch back.
I registered as a Republican because I think we need a revival of moderate Republicanism. It used to be the case, especially in New England, that a Republican office holder could be in favor of civil rights and environmental protection as well as careful budgeting, and those kinds of politicians used to play an important role in national compromises. Those days seem long gone, now, because the party is so dominated by Trump. In the US heartland, people who cross him are afraid of losing their jobs to primary challengers, so they endorse his policies – and so moderate candidates on the coasts can’t run under the Republican banner. But what if there were suddenly a whole lot of new Republican party registrants who could support moderate Republicans? My dream is that everyone who switched registrations to vote for Nikki Haley stays, and more people follow – so that future moderate challengers to an extreme Republican Presidential candidate can win the primary next time. Plus, if that happened the party leadership would notice that we’re here, and could start to field candidates at all levels whom we can support in primaries and who can go on to win general elections in New England again.
I also imagine the same thing happening in reverse in red states, so that lots of people currently registered as Republicans and Independents become Democratic primary voters in the US heartland, leading some Democrats to win general elections there. If that happened, then on the Presidential level, every state would become a swing state. One where politicians have to really talk through what the key issues are for the people who elect them, and both parties wind up getting redefined. (It’s happened before, after all: the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln.) Instead of a map that’s red in the middle and blue on the edges, we’d have one that’s purple everywhere.
My friends, so far, think that dream is crazy and impossible. One even told me that what I did in changing my registration hurt. She said it felt like I wasn’t supporting her anymore, even though she knows I agree with her in opposing almost all the policies of the current Administration. I wrote this piece to explain that I think taking party registration personally is a mental habit we have to break. Political parties are nothing more than the people who register with them, and doing so can be a strategic choice. I guess I’m crazy enough to hope that just maybe, if we made that choice deliberately, we could change how the system works.
