Recently, someone noted that Trump, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk all used to be Democrats. In fact, Ronald Reagan had been a Democrat in his younger days. Reagan often said that the party left him rather than he left the party. Tulsi had run for president as a Democrat during the 2020 primaries, but she soon broke with her party on topics such as LGBTQ, the border, and foreign policy. Her views on all of these would have been mainstream Democrat in 2008 when Obama won the presidency, but were now viewed as 'far right' positions. RFK Jr. has been an environmentalist for all of his professional life and a vaccine skeptic for nearly 20 years. He was a Democrat through all that time until last year, when he became an independent. Then he supported the Republican to Make America Healthy Again. Why didn't his message resonate with his old party? Elon voted for Biden in 2020. However, the censorship that followed led him to buy Twitter. Like RFK Jr., he is clearly on the environmentalist side of the aisle - traditionally aligning with Democrats - but he too switched to the Republican candidate. Elon has tweeted this image to show how he didn't leave the party, it left him:
Remember, Obama opposed same sex marriage in 2008, the trans issue was on the far fringe, and Democrats were the anti-war party. Today, Trump is anti-war, has no issue with same sex marriage, and opposes transgenderism with regard to minors.
When the party flip story is told, it is always about racism. Democrats grew into anti-racists and Republicans - the party created to oppose slavery - adopted racism to win votes. No. That is false. However, it does seem that the parties have traded some policies over the years.
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