I once deeply believed in the Democratic Party.
As a Vermont theater major and Bernie Sanders supporter, I saw Democrats championing justice, fairness and working people. But over time, that faith eroded. The party’s embrace of radical policies — censorship, health mandates and authoritarian tactics — betrayed the values that inspired me. When I questioned the new orthodoxy, friends and family distanced themselves as the party aligned with radicals, abandoning middle-class ideals.
My disillusionment grew with the party’s aggressive embrace of transgender ideology, especially its effects on women’s rights. As an athlete and girls’ gymnastics coach, I’ve seen how this undermines sex-based protections in sports and safe spaces. In 2024, at a YMCA in Keene, N.H., a man identifying as a woman entered the women’s locker room while I was undressing. He lingered beside me for 20 minutes until I hid in a locked stall. Staff dismissed my report and were demeaning. They prioritized ideology over women’s dignity and privacy. That moment showed how inclusion often comes at women’s expense — another reason I walked away from the left.
This cultural shift mirrors a political one: growing comfort with coercion and violence. From 2012 to 2015, Black Lives Matter highlighted racial injustice, but many protests in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore, and other Democrat-led cities turned into riots. Stores were looted and police attacked, while leaders equivocated instead of condemning violence. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, attacks on Trump supporters were brushed off as “pent-up rage.” By summer 2020, after George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland, Ore., suffered looting and arson. Calls to “defund the police” became mainstream while violent crime surged and hundreds of federal officers were injured.
From 2021 to 2024, politically motivated attacks increased as Democratic leaders hesitated to condemn violence from their ranks. The 2022 shooting of House Whip Steve Scalise was followed by more assassinations and threats. The 2025 murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and new revelations about Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones’s violent fantasies revealed normalized hatred. Arsons, shootings, and assassination attempts on President Trump surged. Two attempts during his 2024 campaign — one killing a supporter in Butler, Pa., and another at his Florida golf course — showed democratic civility’s collapse.
The threat went beyond violence to misuse of state power. The revealed “Arctic Frost” operation exposed politicization inside the DOJ and FBI under Biden. Marketed as an election probe, it targeted conservatives, pro-lifers, and Republican senators through covert surveillance. Anti-Trump agent Timothy Thibault oversaw secret “Prohibited Access” files scrutinizing the phones of Trump, Mike Pence, and eight Republicans. Whistleblowers compared Arctic Frost to Watergate because of White House ties and abuse — feeding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions later dismissed after Trump’s 2024 win.
Reports that more than 20 FBI informants attended the Jan. 6 protests, some breaching restricted areas, raised concerns about transparency and entrapment. These revelations suggest the justice system is increasingly weaponized against dissent.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows that social media fuels polarization and normalizes aggression, especially among youth. Platforms like TikTok and Meta reward division over dialogue. Conservative Ben Shapiro described the divide as “lions vs. scavengers”: Lions embrace duty and truth; scavengers nurture grievance and destruction. Today’s Democratic Party increasingly rewards scavengers, substituting responsibility with moral chaos.
My journey mirrors that of many who walked away. The party that once stood for ordinary people now trades free speech for censorship, fairness for favoritism, and compassion for coercion. Losing friends and family for my beliefs confirmed that Democrats have abandoned their defining values.
Unless Democratic leaders denounce extremism, reject violence and restore respect for law and reason, they risk alienating working Americans. Democracy’s future depends on responsibility, peace and honest discourse. Denial time has passed — the nation’s stability depends on moral courage and truth.
