California Democratic heavyweight Gloria Romero leaves party

September 4, 2024

Opinion by Gloria Romero

I am announcing today that I am leaving the Democratic Party. I was a Democratic convention delegate for the Reverend Jesse Jackson and President Barack Obama at three different conventions. I was California co-chair for the re-election of President Obama.

FDR, JFK and RFK were heroes in my household. I vividly remember where I was when the Kennedys were assassinated. Dreams dashed, the quest for hope never extinguished, however.

In this capitol, I served as both Senate Democratic Caucus Chair and the Senate Majority Leader.

Today, I say goodbye, adios, I’ve had enough. I am now another near lifelong Democrat who is joining the growing number of people—including key groups, Latinos— who are leaving the Democratic Party.

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

I changed my voting registration today to Republican which has, under Donald Trump, become the champion of working people, the big tent. I will vote for Donald Trump this fall.

While there are several issues I could highlight for this action, these are prominent:

The so-called Party of Democracy eradicated 14 million votes, including mine, in order to install its preferred candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. But even before that, the Democratic primaries were rigged so as to prevent viable candidates from jumping in to even campaign.

Lawfare was utilized. At the end, similar to Latin American dictatorships, the dedazo was used to tap who the political elite and big donors wanted to run; a political coup was, essentially, executed.

I have run for office in the past—what message does this send that if the donors and elites don’t like you, they can simply replace you with the candidate of their choice at any moment—undermining any semblance of the voters’ will?

The Democratic Party has taken a giant leap to authoritarianism, censorship: It was President Reagan who warned that if fascism comes to America it will come as liberalism. As a former member of the executive board of the Southern California ACLU, individual freedoms are trapped, silenced by authoritarianism, censorship.

It is terrifying to see how language has been modified so that, as a feminist and a former Professor at Cal State University, I would be condemned for saying that I candefine a woman and distinguish between biological sex and gender identify. This is the so-called party of women which has eradicated Title IX protections for sports equity for women.

While I am pro-choice, I will not support a party that advocates for abortion to full term. I am a mother and refuse to call myself a “birthing person.”

The Democratic Party has become the party of censorship, authoritarianism, and locking people up for free speech. The Democratic Party has abandoned veterans at home to send millions and millions oversees.

The Republican Party has become the party of peace while the Democrats have marched towards endless war. Today’s Democratic Party and VP Harris, specifically, have 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. Anyone who has ever buried a young soldier in war can feel the pain of that.

The Democratic Party has turned its back on the working class, becoming the party of the elites and big buck donors. We see, daily, Democratic leaders lecture the people as to how to live their lives under the burden of COVID-19, climate change, a crime crisis, and rampant inflation while they, out of touch with Californians, feast at the French Laundry.

Grocery prices have soared; some 39% of Americans say they’ve skipped meals to make housing payments. For millennials it is 44% and baby boomers its 20%.

As a Mexican-American, I know my history: my family was here even 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 and the inept Biden. People around the world flock to America—we should insist on maintaining what citizenship means.

Perhaps my biggest disconnect with my old Democratic Party has been over school choice, education freedom and the right to have quality schools for all—especially for poor and minority children trapped in chronically failing schools.

They remain trapped even while the most powerful special interest funnels money to keep this not as a public education system, but a public works system that functions as jobs for adults in the system—damning the kids and stifling their American Dream and the ticket that lifts them out of poverty.

The Democratic Party thrives off this failure, shamefully looking away even as our children fall farther and farther behind in reading, writing, and the ability to compete internationally.

At our universities, I’ve seen Jewish students threatened. I went to Auschwitz some years ago and no one can ever step inside that crematorium and come back and say that its okay to not remember. Yet, here in our hallowed campuses of UC Berkeley or UCLA—it’s been horrific.

I watched with horror women being kidnapped, blood dripping on Oct 7—and Democratic Party has forsaken Israel to capture the Hamas Caucus of Congress and a swing state.

I have seen the best of America: a nation that went to the moon and even beyond. but our American landing has become like quicksand under a Democratic Party that is sinking the hopes and lives of too many politically unconnected Americans, livelihoods being destroyed or killed by drug warfare due to an open borders and a Bidenomics economy that none should embrace.

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

Today, I am leaving the Democratic Party. I stayed for as long as I could. I tried reforms, I spoke out, I voted.

Today, I turn to the future—a land of opportunity and free speech. I am excited to join a Party that was started by the greatest American—Abraham Lincoln, and the challenges of building a great Republic will take 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 who have welcomed me into an America First tent and I feel free at last.