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California Democratic heavyweight Gloria Romero leaves party

September 4, 2024

Gloria Romero

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.

 


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I guess the tent just got bigger. Gloria Romero of California, a long time Democrat, just switched over to the Republican party. Again, let’s welcome people who want to be creative and talk about issues not just use sound bytes e.g “trump wants to take away voting rights” , “trump is a 3 time felon” , “trump is a rapist “…….


Each of those can be discussed rationally and see what all the facts are and then make a decision. Instead we just throw out the words and walk away!!!


19

She shoulda made the move sooner. It sure does have her old party mates’ panties twisted tight judging by the comments on here.


30

What does it say about those posting comments here who are seething with vitriol, venom and hate towards Gloria Romero? They are howling like demons splashed with Holy water. It’s not just a few voters and politicians that no longer recognize today’s Democratic party they once identified with decades in the past. Many can no longer stomach the extreme shift to the Left and the pressure to prioritize radical party ideology over public good. Indoctrinated persons are blind to facts, and the facts have long shown that the supermajority one-party tyranny in Sacramento has failed California. Homelessness, rampant drug & crime culture, illegal immigration, below par public education and high cost of living are the products of non-pragmatic one-party Dem governance.


5

Whilst I am and have always been a “No Party Preference” voter, I can only imagine how relieved the local Democratic Party must be to have you off their rolls and out of their campaigns. That spew of gobbledygook conspiracy, lies and misinformation talking points is a real clue that you don’t have one, IMHO. Sorry to be so blunt, but what passes for “critical thinking” in some circles these days is just sad.


The Dems are far from perfect, but at least they are not actively trying to create a dictatorship and end voting. Among other things. Check Project 2025, if you doubt what the playbook for a second term entails.


Most of us are going to be glad to vote for someone who is not a many times convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and lifelong grifter. But, since this is at the moment still a free county, where we can still vote, I guess that is a matter of taste and choice to which, for now, you are entitled.


-62

I’m sure no party is happy to have you.

Both parties have sold out the American working citizens, Regan, Bush, Clinton and Obama are all guilty of pandering to the mega cops while our manufacturing moved out of this country, all in the name of larger profits. It seems our elected officials do not represent the people but the lobbies. We need to look toward those who will do what is best for the country and the citizens of this country.


10

To a large extent, this has been true. Sadly, the party that initiated the legislation that funds the corporate control over our government is very fond of that circumstance, otherwise they would elect representation that would vote against “Citizens United” which allows corporate entities to buy elections, supposedly in the name of their workers. What a joke. On us.


I find it impossible to respect a group of voters who can’t figure that one out. Until we stop allowing corporate oligarchs to buy our government, corruption will rule both parties.


Until they wise up ad repeal that legislation, the only alternative is to vote for the candidates that take small donations rather than massive endowments from billionaires and their PACs with an agenda.


0

Good for you Gloria Romero. Sounds as though you left with some semblance of your soul being intact.

Today’s Democrat party lost their souls to the devil between the years 2008-2016 during the Obama administration.

Best wishes to you and your family.


45

Was it the tan suit?


Or is this the conspiracy where Obama (the black guy) is running everything behind the curtains.


-32

I’m not sure why you are obsessed with the color of one’s skin, but it’s not my obsession. Obama certainly divided our country with just that. That, and the rich against the poor, religion vs. religion of which he favored one over the other. You figure out which one. All cops are bad and they should be defunded. The list is so very very long.

Now, as for the question of is he running everything behind the scenes? I am one who truly believes that. The Biden administration is full of Obama holdovers and all I’ve seen the past 3-1/2 years is a continueum of the Obama years. Division, division, division. And the fact that he has a home not 2 miles from the Whitehouse, I’d say it’s a sure bet that he is certainly one of many puppet masters.


33

With Kami running around the country and the old man laying on the beach who else would be running the show?


35

All are puppets.


4

Not buying that this is real for a second. I call BS.


-27

Gloria Romero, lol


Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List, Updated 2018 NYT


The Long, Racist History of Donald Trump, From the 1970s to Now


“Trump began his presidential campaign in 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants rapists. He also said they were “bringing crime” and “bringing drugs” to America. Trump used this rhetoric to justify building a wall to keep them out of the United States.”


Leopards wouldn’t eat my face, right?…


-57

“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”The Republican party is by no means perfect but is definitely moving in the right direction. Welcome aboard Gloria.


52

Cultural appropriation by the Republican party, have some context. 


“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.


But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.

We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”


The Republican party’s candidate is a fountain of bitterness, hatred and lies.


Go read his words for yourself, I have.


-56

Dr King said those words in 1963. Republicans, after nearly 100 years of defeating the democrats pro-slavery stance in a Civil War, Jim Crow laws, segregation laws, anti-black voting laws, and the democrat founded and funded KKK, he realized his “someday dream” in 1964 when the overwhelming vote for the Civil Rights Act was passed, despite over half of democrats in Congress voting against it.


I’m not going to lie. Democrats are still mad that we took away their slaves.


37

And segregationist senator Strom Thurmond was a Democrat until 1964 when he switched affiliation to the Republican Party.


Whatever 100 years ago and you missed the point I was making, wooosh.


-30

What a breath of fresh air. Welcome to the party of common sense.


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