Lifelong Democrat and lifelong hippie renounces his party: “It reminds me of 1930s Germany”
A lifelong Democrat, self-described card-carrying hippie, and environmentalist who once lived among the redwoods to protect forests has publicly walked away from the party. He says the current direction is dangerous, antisemitic, and no longer about the values he once supported.
“I used to consider myself a lifelong Democrat. I’m a card-carrying hippie, an environmentalist. I’ve lived with trees and redwood trees to do forest protection. I care about the world, I care about minority rights. And I just want to say publicly though, that the course that the Democratic Party is taking right now, with the anti-Zionists and the antisemitic rhetoric and commercials coming out of Michigan, and just the movement in general and what they did on October 8th, I would like to publicly say I renounce my standing with the Democratic Party.”
He describes the shift as something he recognizes from history.
“I’m generally a two-winger, I say it takes two wings to fly, but I’m so disappointed and disgusted with the dangerous turn the Democratic Party is taking. It reminds me, and I’m not exaggerating, I study history, it reminds me of 1930s Germany. I don’t get it. I get it, but I don’t get it. I feel like the party’s been infiltrated by, I’d say, demonic.”
On the Free Palestine movement, he is direct. It is not about freedom or statehood.
“The Free Palestine movement, in my opinion, is a Trojan horse. It’s not about freeing Palestine, it’s not about freedoms. If you play out the Free Palestine, gave them a country, Gaza was given to the Palestinians, it turned into hell. It would be a place with no freedoms, no women’s rights, no freedom of speech, no elections. It would be another jihadi hell like almost every other country in the region. It’s not about Free Palestine, it’s about anti-Israel, Islamic expansionism.”
He calls the flag and the movement a curse that follows wherever it goes.
“That flag and that movement is a curse. Look to the Palestinian people. If it weren’t for the ‘let’s take all the land’ movement, the Palestinians would have had a state in 1948, 1967, and the six times that a state was offered to them, they would have one. It’s been a curse to them. Everywhere that flag shows up, look at Paris today, it’s a curse. Look at those college campuses and the college minds, it’s a curse wherever it goes.”
He also points to the Democratic Socialist wing and the scenes already playing out in Europe.
“It’s strange to me, the Democratic Socialist movement, you know, like what? Look at Paris. Does that look—do you want that in your neighborhood? Your bakery shops, your hard-earned stores, money, getting ransacked? It doesn’t look like the best idea.”
He still plans to vote and notes support for one Democrat, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, but makes clear he is done with the party label. “I just want to publicly renounce my affiliation. … I’m not a Democrat.”