I walked away from the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans.

I will vote for Donald Trump for president.

I’ve been a true-blue Democrat, a former California state senator who chaired its Senate Democratic Caucus and served as Senate Majority Leader.

I was a Democratic National Convention delegate for Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama, and state co-chair for President Obama’s re-election.

But I’ve said goodbye, adios, I’ve had enough.  

This is not the Democratic Party I once championed. I don’t recognize it anymore.

The so-called “party of democracy” eradicated 14 million votes, including mine, to install Vice President Kamala Harris as its nominee.  

Like a banana republic, the dedazo was used by political elites to tap the candidate they chose.  Essentially, they executed a political coup. 

As California’s attorney general, Harris was unimpressive.

She made an intentional choice to hitch herself to the powerful teachers’ union and was clearly being coddled by a power elite that was even then shaping her political future.

Her manipulated rise is in line with the Democratic Party’s giant leap toward authoritarianism and censorship.  

President Ronald Reagan warned that if fascism comes to America it will come as liberalism, and he was right: I have witnessed individual freedoms being trapped, silenced, censored. 

I’ve seen the terrifying modification of language that condemns me for saying that I can define a woman and can distinguish between biological sex and gender identity.

I am a mother and refuse to call myself a “birthing person.” 

I’m pro-choice, but I do not support abortion till birth.

What happened to “safe, legal and rare”? 

The Trump-led Republican Party has become the party of peace, while Democrats have marched toward endless war.  

Harris has refused to speak the names of the 13 American soldiers whose lives were sacrificed for a photo-op in the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, but she has run from the blood on her hands.  

The Democratic Party has turned its back on the working class.

Democratic leaders lecture us on sacrificing our liberties under the burdens of COVID and climate change and inflation, while they feast with their friends and donors at the French Laundry.

As a Mexican-American, I have long embraced pathways to citizenship, but I reject the mockery of throwing open our southern border to all comers.

People around the world flock to America — we should insist on maintaining what citizenship means.

Perhaps my biggest disillusionment with Democratic Party has been its refusal to embrace school choice and good schools for all. 

Harris proclaims she was a prosecutor, but she used her power to do the bidding of the teachers’ union and overturn a court victory won by mostly low-income, minority parents and kids seeking vital education reforms.  

Meanwhile, she sought prosecution of parents for not forcing their “truant” kids to attend those chronically failing schools.

Today, in Harris’ hometown Oakland school district, 75% of both Latino and black students are not proficient in basic reading or math. 

I watched the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel with horror. 

The Democratic Party has forsaken our ally to placate the pro-Hamas wing and win a swing state.  

I have seen the best of America: a nation that went to the moon and beyond. 

But our American landing has become like quicksand under a Democratic Party that is sinking the hopes and lives of Americans.

So I finally walked away. I stayed for as long as I could: I tried reforms, I spoke out, I voted. 

Today, I turn toward the future — an America that still shines, despite inequities that need change; a blessed land of opportunity — and join the party of the greatest American, Abraham Lincoln. 

The challenges of rebuilding our republic will take all of us. 

I join the Republican Party to make America great again.

I am free at last.

Gloria Romero is a former California state senator.