I have just walked away from the Democratic Party and joined the blue-collar billionaire Donald Trump’s new Republican Party.

My political journey has been deep blue: John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert, were heroes in my home. I was a Democratic National Convention delegate for Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama. I was a California co-chair for the re-election committee of President Obama. I served as California’s state Senate Democratic caucus chairwoman and Senate majority leader.

The Democratic Party has turned into the party of censorship, authoritarianism, and imprisoning people for exercising free speech.

And now I say goodbye, adios, to all that. I’ve had enough. I am now another near-lifelong Democrat joining many who have left the Democratic Party already.

This is not the Democratic Party that I once championed. I don’t recognize it any more, and I cannot continue.

A long and winding road

It has been quite a political journey for me. As the daughter of Depression-era Democrats, I wrestled with how my long-deceased parents might have reacted to my decision. But I know that they too would agree that the party left us and what we had championed as Democrats long before I made my choice.

Here are a few reasons why I decided to walk away.

The so-called party of democracy erased 14 million votes, including mine, to install its preferred candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Even before that, Democrats rigged the primaries to block viable candidates from participating fairly. They used lawfare tactics, and in the end, political elites handpicked “our” candidate like a banana republic-style dictatorship using the dedazo. Essentially, they executed a political coup in plain sight.

The Democratic Party has made a bold move toward authoritarianism and censorship. President Reagan warned that fascism would arrive in America disguised as liberalism, and as a former executive board member of the Southern California ACLU (now completely missing in action), I saw individual freedoms being stifled. As Donald Trump faced indictments on trumped-up charges, I realized that a new American gulag system had emerged under the guise of “democracy.”

Watching language change so drastically has been terrifying. As a feminist and former university professor, I would now face condemnation for defining a woman and distinguishing between biological sex and gender identity. I once marched to Helen Reddy’s anthem, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” but the new so-called party of women is dismantling Title IX protections. As a mother, I refuse to call myself a “birthing person.” While I am pro-choice, I cannot support abortion up to the ninth month. Whatever happened to safe, legal, and rare? Bringing an abortion taco truck to the DNC mocked life and trivialized a decision that is anything but “joyful.”

The Democratic Party has turned into the party of censorship, authoritarianism, and imprisoning people for exercising free speech. It has abandoned veterans at home while sending millions overseas and profiting from international business deals.

Wars abroad and at home

The Trump-led Republican Party has become the party of peace while Democrats have marched toward endless war. Kamala Harris, specifically, has refused to speak the names of the 13 American soldiers whose lives were sacrificed for a photo op in the horrific, botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. She boasted about being “the last one in the room” but cannot run from the blood on her hands. Anyone who has ever helped a family bury their child can feel that pain. I will always remember Clarence Griego, just 20 years old, as my hometown laid him to rest during the Vietnam War.

I watched with horror women being kidnapped, blood dripping in Israel, on October 7. The Democratic Party has forsaken Israel to win a swing state. At our universities, Jewish students have been threatened and assaulted. I went to Auschwitz some years ago, and no one can ever step inside that crematorium and return to America and say it’s OK not to remember. Yet on our hallowed American campuses, it’s been horrific.

The Democratic Party has turned its back on the working class, becoming the party of the elites and big donors. Democratic leaders lecture us how to sacrifice our liberties under the burden of COVID-19, climate change, and rampant inflation while they feast with their friends and big donors at the French Laundry.

Grocery prices have soared. Some 39% of Americans say they’ve skipped meals to make ends meet.

My family was in this country before the border crossed us in 1848. I have long embraced pathways to citizenship, but I reject the mockery of citizenship and the throwing open of our southern border by the ineffective border czar. People around the world flock to America — we should insist on maintaining what citizenship means.

My biggest disillusionment with the Democratic Party is its refusal to support school choice and quality education for all — especially for poor and minority children trapped in chronically failing schools. They constantly cater to powerful, wealthy teachers' unions. Harris, who often touts her past as a prosecutor, betrayed those values when she went to the California Supreme Court on behalf of the teachers' union to overturn a court victory won by parents and mostly low-income, minority students trying to reform key laws that keep ineffective teachers in their classrooms.

Harris also bragged about jailing mostly poor mothers for their “truant” children who weren’t attending California’s failing schools. In doing so, she and the Democratic Party stifled the American dream and the education that could lift low-income, minority children out of poverty. In Harris’ hometown of Oakland, even today, about 75% of Latino and black students are not proficient in reading or math.

Free at last

I have witnessed the best of America — a nation that reached the moon and beyond. But today, under the Democratic Party, our American landing feels like quicksand, sinking the hopes and lives of Americans. Livelihoods are being destroyed by drug warfare fueled by open borders and the terrible effects of Bidenomics.

The Democratic Party positions itself as the party of freedom, liberty, and democracy while it has become “1984” in 2024.

So I finally had to walk away. I stayed for as long as I could. I tried reforms, I spoke out, I voted.

Today, I turn to the future — to an America that still shines, despite glaring inequities that must be eradicated, as a land of opportunity and free speech. I am excited to join a party that was started by the greatest American — Abraham Lincoln. The challenges of building a great republic will require all of us. Today, I join the Republican Party to make America great again, and I am ready to do my part as America prepares to vote.

I thank the many people who have welcomed me into the America First big tent. I feel free at last.