I left the Democrats before you did when they started forcing us to be racist, i.e. separate people by race, religion and ethnicity, or sexist, i.e. push a pro woman, anti man, anti traditional family, and such that went against everything I believed then and now. And that has only gotten worse and has expanded into almost every aspect of the human condition. The GOP is much much less guilty there.
Fiscal irresponsibility I blame both parties. The GOP are just as self-serving as the Democrats, but because they serve a different kind of constituency, they take us to hell in a hand basket at somewhat slower pace than do the Democrats. And the GOP is marginally more conscious of the consequences of what they do and tend to be more transparent and less damaging. The Democrats seem oblivious to the consequences of their policies and do not seem to care what the results are. If the title on the bill is noble and they can use it to fool the people in their self-serving projects, that's good enough for them.
And beginning somewhere in the Reagan administration, any attempt at congeniality went out the window and the two major parties have been at polar opposites, de facto war with one another ever since. The GOP isn't entirely clean there, but they at least have maintained somewhat more integrity. I can't imagine the GOP putting on a show 'trial' as one sided, unfair, and and dishonest as the Jan 6 Commission.
So I register GOP so that I can vote in my state's primary. I am less embarrassed to be identified as Republican. I consider myself independent though.
