Thread by @JohnMWoodman

@davidhogg111 I was a Republican for 35 years, and entirely committed.

I was fully on board, for decades, and totally believed that Democrats were completely wrong about pretty much everything.

Why? Well, for starters, I didn't watch TV, but I did listen to talk radio.

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@davidhogg111 Here in SW Missouri, the ONLY talk radio that's available is NPR, and 3 different "conservative" talk radio stations.

I never listened to NPR, for several reasons.

Half of the time, the station plays classical music. (Boring.)

They also spend time on obscure artsy stuff.

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@davidhogg111 They also spend time on news from places like Peru. I wasn't interested.

That left the "conservative" talk radio stations.

I didn't care for Limbaugh, but I was a big fan of Sean Hannity.

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@davidhogg111 My journey away from the Republican Party was far from overnight.

I had decades invested, and was completely convinced.

But I can tell you the day that it faintly started:

April 27, 2011.

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@davidhogg111 That was the day that a White House staffer uploaded a digital copy of then President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate to the White House web site.

YouTube was immediately flooded with claims that Obama's birth certificate was a "Photoshopped forgery."

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@davidhogg111 As a politically interested computer guy (who until then had lived in a right-wing echo chamber and would have loved to see President Obama fail), I decided to take a look at it.

I ended up getting sucked into the issue, and doing a full investigation.

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@davidhogg111 I never found the slightest real evidence of any "forgery."

By that time, I knew a lot about it, so I wrote a book explaining that the only plausible source of the layering and other so-called "anomalies" was computer optimization of the image.

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@davidhogg111 Later on, others traced this to software embedded in the White House Xerox WorkCentre office machine.

Along the way, I discovered that some folks on the right were outright self-serving liars and con men.

And some on the left were quite decent people.

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@davidhogg111 In 2016, when Trump became the Republican nominee, I knew I couldn't participate in that.

For a brief time, I still had hope of reforming the Republican Party.

Trump's nomination likely helped me decide to embark on the biggest project of my life.

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@davidhogg111 I wanted to know what, exactly, was wrong with America, and how we might fix it.

I spent the next five years learning everything I could about this question.

The result of that is a course, entitled, "How We Fix America."

howwefixamerica.com

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@davidhogg111 I looked to see:

* what issues have the very greatest daily impact on the greatest number of us,

* what issues are important but secondary,

* and what issues are distractions.

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@davidhogg111 I researched and wrote the course from as non-partisan a view as possible.

But personally, when I began researching I was still a Republican.

Before long, I became an independent.

And not so terribly long after that, I decided that yes, I could & should become a Democrat.

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@davidhogg111 One of the great sticking points for me personally was the issue of abortion.

I had been steeped in the classic right-wing view.

I spent two entire years just studying the issue of abortion, from every perspective possible.

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@davidhogg111 I ended up with a mess of 600+ pages of notes and writing, and a realization that the Republican Party is not remotely genuinely pro-life.

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@davidhogg111 I came to the realization that not only COULD I participate in the Democratic Party while wanting to do the right thing regarding abortion policy, but the Democratic Party was really the ONLY place for me as a "genuinely-pro-life" individual.

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@davidhogg111 This is true even when we're talking ONLY about abortion.

The Republican Party cares nothing for women in crisis, or for the children they're forcing to be born.

But Abortion Prohibitionism (the only thing they offer) isn't even the most effective way to reduce abortion.

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@davidhogg111 The ONLY policies that are truly effective in reducing abortion are those pushed by Democrats & flat-out OPPOSED by Republicans.

* An economy that works for everyone—because when people can afford to have families, they tend to do so.

When they can't, many have abortions.

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@davidhogg111 * Strong support for families. Child care. Health care. School lunches for those struggling to afford them.

* Evidence-based sex education that actually works.

* Widespread, affordability of the most effective contraception.

Republicans actively oppose ALL these things.

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@davidhogg111 And of course, the Republican #AntiLife dynamic goes beyond this, to other issues — such as the one you're passionate about.

Protecting kids, and Americans in general, from gun violence.

And other things.

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@davidhogg111 Every rich country on earth is committed to providing health care for every citizen.

The United States? Nope.

And the #AntiLife Republican Party leads the charge against health care for all.

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@davidhogg111 To bring a long story to its close, I realized that the #Republican Party isn't offering real solutions to ANY of the major issues we face.

They're not the party of solutions.

And I realized that the Democratic Party is.

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@davidhogg111 My conversion from Republican to Democrat was slow, but it is thorough.

Today I would be happy to see the Republican Party go the way of the Whigs. The way of the Know-Nothings.

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@davidhogg111 As far as I'm concerned, the Republican Party deserves to go extinct.

It is not serving America, and in fact has now become the most powerful force threatening our great country, through the lies, division, horrible policy, and authoritarianism it now promotes.

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