'There is no more Republican party': will California's Orange county swing Democratic?

[Demovictory9]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/orange-county-turn-blue-republicans-democrats

Dan Ardell has been voting Republican all his life, but not this November.

In many ways he is a conservative from central casting: a churchgoing 77-year-old retired businessman from Orange county, the suburban expanse between Los Angeles and San Diego that was once said to be where good Republicans went to die.

Ardell voted for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter, and George W Bush over Al Gore. But now he has had enough – enough of Donald Trump, certainly, but also enough of Dana Rohrabacher, the beguilingly soft-spoken but reliably out-there rightwing congressman who in 30 years on Capitol Hill has never previously faced a significant election challenge.

“Rohrabacher is of the same caliber as Trump,” Ardell said. “They’re low-level, relatively unintelligent people. Trump has no civility, no common sense. He can’t even spell the word nuance.”
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Harley Rouda, the real estate magnate turned Democratic party challenger to Rohrabacher, is a former Republican. So are many of the locally hired staff and volunteers on his campaign team. The number of registered Republicans in the district is steadily diminishing, down to around 40% now compared with 44% four years ago, while the number of registered Democrats and those designated “no party preference” is steadily increasing.

“There’s a cultural shift,” said Katherine Amoukhteh, an engineer who has been a registered Republican for 20 years but is supporting Rouda. “The party has changed a lot ... and that’s left us with one of two choices. Either we say, to hell with you guys and become Democrats or independents. Or we stay on the team and say, I may be a Republican but I don’t have to vote Republican up and down the ballot.”

Amoukhteh hated the way Trump talked about women on the campaign trail and refused to vote for him. Then she looked at Rohrabacher and found she could not abide him either. “My litmus test was Roe v Wade,” she said. “How can we still be talking about whether women have abortion rights? I have a teenage daughter. I want to be able to look her in the eye and say, ‘I did the best I could.’”

As is common in many affluent suburban districts, it is Republican women who are leading the charge. Two of them, both now Rouda supporters, told the Guardian of the existence of secret wives’ clubs in Newport Beach whose members loathe Trump but have not dared tell or confront their husbands. These women meet in each other’s homes – many of them in the desirable Port streets overlooking Newport Bay – to talk politics, but won’t be seen together in public and won’t canvas or phone-bank for Rouda for fear of being found out.

[JHan]

1. It might well turn blue. County voted HRC in 2016.

which was surprising. The county hadn't voted Dem in 80 years I think.

[sprinkleeninow]

3. I donated to Harley. It was spoken to me to do dat.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. While I'm happy to see more women vote for Democrats, it troubles me and

angers me that they have to sneak around to keep their political opinions from their husbands. What kind of relationship requires that level of secrecy?

[DFW]

4. Took the words right out of my mouth

They have to sneak around to be able to express their beliefs openly? What kind of husbands do these women have?

[Arkansas Granny]

6. What kind of women live with these men and why?

I couldn't do that for love nor money.

[DFW]

9. Must be a mentality born of another place

I know my wife wouldn't spend ten minutes with a man like that, let alone a lifetime, and for that matter, I woldn't want a woman looking for that kind of man to begin with.

[montana_hazeleyes]

5. That jumped out at me also!

That shows right there the way republicans treat women.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. Why do women put up with it? Their acceptance of that behavior is upsetting, as well.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I found that bone chilling.

[Demovictory9]

11. yes, really sad

[haele]

12. A religious upbringing where the woman is daddy's little princess waiting for Prince Charming.

People forget, "Hollywood Babylon" is not where most Californian live. Honestly, there's a Christian style church pretty much every five blocks in any city or town you live in; probably far more than in those supposedly Gawd-Fearing flyover rural areas. Also, there's been an expectation for most middle class girls in the 60's through mid 2000's (at least) to be raised to be a Disneyfied Princess, striving for that "practically perfect" lifestyle. Still trying to break the adult stepdaughter of the expectation she should be living "The Suite Life", because she's not living in an f'ing kid's sitcom. God, her real mother really screwed her up with that "marry for money and you'll never be unhappy" crap.

Also, lots of immigrants have come to Southern California since the 20's to make money - especially in real estate and tech; and most of them come from areas of the country or the world where the men call the shots. It takes a certain arrogance, drive, and focus to be able to succeed in a world of sharks, and both real estate and tech in California are full of sharks.

So, unless they are sharks themselves, "the Wives of OC", who went to college primarily to learn enough charm to get their MRS (no matter how talented they may really be) will do whatever their husbands want to retain access to that sweet, sweet money and the status it brings.

Because that's how they truly believe God and Media made them.

Haele

[Arkansas Granny]

13. That may be why I am still single 42 years after my divorce. I can't play that game.

[LAS14]

10. Thanks! I've been looking for stories like these for over three years!!!

I knew that not all Republicans would be able to stomach tRump and his base!!!
And we have to have at least two parties. We need a loyal opposition, and I would much prefer it be old fashioned economic Republicans than us Democrats. But the worst would be a collapsed democracy.