I didn’t become a Republican to vent my anger. I

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I didn’t become a Republican to vent my anger. I became one to follow my aspirations.

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She and the other guy will soon be in glassed cases at the Creation Science Museum. "Look dad the Republisauruses are over here! What were they? Son, they were the 'get off my lawn' Party. Easily frightened and almost always angry.

LOL!

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I Want a Party to Inspire Me, Not Frighten Me

Linda Chavez

Linda Chavez was the director of public liaison in the Reagan White House and the G.O.P. Senate nominee from Maryland in 1986. She is the president of the Becoming American Institute, a nonprofit making the conservative case for immigration reform.

Updated July 21, 2016, 10:27 AM


I was not to the Republican Party born. I became a Republican largely because of one man, Ronald Reagan. He offered a vision of America that was strong, prosperous and a force for good in the world at a time when Americans were feeling discouraged and unsure. In 1980, inflation and high interest rates were eating away at the American Dream.

The Soviet Union seemed on the ascendancy, winning proxy wars in Asia, Africa and Latin America, while the United States was unable even to free our own citizens held hostage by Iranian thugs. Reagan promised to rebuild our military, restore our economy and allow Americans to keep more of their own hard-earned money. It was a message that allowed me to feel confident in casting my first Republican vote at the age of 33.

I didn’t become a Republican to vent my anger. I became one to follow my aspirations.

The Republican Party I joined stood for a strong national defense, individual responsibility and self-reliance, smaller government and lower taxes. It eschewed dividing America into groups, instead promising equal opportunity to all, not preferences or guaranteed results for some.

The G.O.P. looked to the private sector as the engine of economic growth and saw an expanding economy as the best hope for improving the lives of the poor. It favored policies that encouraged investment and work and opposed those that punished the successful or made government dependency a way of life.

Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party reached out, casting a wider net to welcome newcomers, with doors that “were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here,” as President Reagan said. It was a party that believed in free markets and free trade.

Donald Trump wants to slam the Golden Door shut, at least temporarily, build walls and impose tariffs. He blames other employers for hiring foreign workers and shipping jobs overseas but has a history of doing exactly the same thing, including exploiting illegal immigrants.

Republicans were the party of optimism not envy, who looked to the future instead of clinging to the past. But it is unclear if that version of the Republican Party will survive the nomination of Donald Trump.

Watching the G.O.P. convention this week I keep waiting to hear what my party believes in. I want to be inspired, not frightened. I don’t want to listen to a mob yelling “lock her up” about the Democratic nominee — tyrannical regimes lock up the opposition, democracies defeat them at the polls.

I didn’t become a Republican to vent my anger. I became one to follow my aspirations. If the party hopes to keep voters like me in the fold it is going to have to appeal to my principles not just stoke fear and loathing of the other nominee.

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