To expand on my earlier post...
Since the election, I have given serious consideration to becoming an Independent, but after 40 plus years as a Republican, (that goes back to passing out "President Nixon Now..More Than Ever" buttons when I was 13 years old in 1972) it's not a decision I would make lightly...
I'm used to being in a party where a strong segment is to my right on issues like abortion, but when I see an appalling and depressing poll result ("appalled" and "depressed" have been pretty much constant features of my attitude about the national political situation for nearly a year, ever since The Trump Thing started winning primaries) showing over a third of people claiming to be Republicans having a positive attitude about
Vladimir Putin... 
it
really gives me pause...
But on the other hand I would never, ever,
EVER join the party of class envy; the party that has as its foundational principle the idea that letting people keep more of their own money is a "give away". The party that basically holds the private sector in contempt, and believes that government mandates are the go-to solutions for all our problems...
Private sector solutions, and private/public partnerships are always to be preferred to government action whenever possible...
(But I also I realize that something like the interstate highway system (which has
enormously fueled private sector wealth generation) would never have been built by the private sector alone...)
On national defense and national security, with Trump leading the GOP, we have for the first time since WW II a situation where
neither party is hardcore...(throughout most of the Cold War, until the 70s, both parties were dominated by realistic hawks)
Hillary Clinton as a person was hardcore on these issues, but she will no longer be leading the Democrats, and the dominant theme within the Democratic Party is essentially pacifist and defeatist...
At the moment, I feel like a Man Without A Party, but my natural inclination is to stand and fight, rather than give up on the GOP...
I'm not ready to walk away from the party of Lincoln and Reagan, and surrender it to the drooling Trumpanzees...
But if ultimately I make that painful and reluctant decision, you can be
DAMN sure,it
won't be to join the party of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich...