THE GREAT DIVIDE

I enjoyed Steve Almond’s essay, “Our Separate Ways” (Connections, November 4). Mine is perhaps an inverse of Almond’s situation, where most of my friends are Republicans and/or conservative but I, also a Republican, feel out of place among them. Seems the only place in the party these days is for hard-liners, particularly on the social-issues front. I get my Republicanism from Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the classic fiscal conservative/social progressives of days apparently gone by. I’ve attended the last two Massachusetts Republican conventions and could not help but feel I was among Southern Democrats/Confederates. Ronald Reagan said about his leaving the Democratic Party that to him it felt as though the party left him. I can’t help but feel that the Republican Party is leaving not only me but also itself. I’ll not become a Democrat, but I’ll be casting off party affiliation. The founders preferred that anyway.