Several years ago I stepped back from being a very vocal conservative Republican, but the current occupant of the White House — his abhorrent behavior, actions and policies too often dismissed and excused by people close to me — make it impossible for me to stand on the sidelines anymore.

I don’t want to look back in 40 years, ashamed I wasn’t more vocal because it was inconvenient, or that I might ruffle some feathers of my family and friends, or that I took for granted my duty and right to speak up about who I think is best suited to lead our constitutional republic into the future.

For me, that person is head and shoulders above everyone currently running — including the incumbent.

For me, that person is Pete Buttigieg.

All my adult life I have been a registered Republican. But a few weeks ago, I officially left the party because I could no longer, in clear conscience, continue to support a party that has sold its soul for power — power that it is using to irreverently assert itself as if it were unduly wronged, power it is exerting in a very short-sighted manner to extol its political will on its opponents.

The GOP has portrayed itself as a victim, a behavior it has hypocritically accused Democrats of for years. It has become a party that is ever more untruthful and lacking in values, a party that is unwilling to hold its leadership accountable for their blatant lies — lies that don’t depend on the opinions of the left but are publicly available and documented, even beyond the president’s disgusting Twitter feed.

I could write volumes on why I have come to despise the current administration, but I can’t just be against something, I have to have reasons to be for something — and someone.

It’s well known that Pete speaks several languages, but the one that truly matters to me is that he speaks to our American values. Even if we differ slightly on policy, he has shown that he wants to start with shared beliefs and build policies around those. For example, in developing his Douglass Plan, he reached out to leaders and activists in communities of color and relied on their input and ideas to help shape a comprehensive policy together.

Pete is a white, midwesterner who advocates for racial justice and equality, even while speaking to mostly white audiences because he understands that issues of race affect all of us and that white Americans must be part of the solution.

That message matters.

I know white people who point to famous people of color or the first black president and declare racism has been solved, that we’ve achieved Martin Luther King Jr.’s Great Dream, that skin color doesn’t matter any more than the color of my eyes.

But for the overwhelming majority of communities of color, that’s simply not reality.

We still have a long way to go. And Pete knows that.

He’s not pandering. He’s literally standing in barns in Iowa, full of white people, explaining why it’s important to invest in communities of color. Who does that?

Someone who truly believes that systemic change is possible and necessary and who wants to bring our country together again, that’s who.

It is imperative to have a leader who stands for Americans of all religions and of no religion. I’m a Christian whose faith calls me to love and to share God’s grace. But to me, those who see themselves as warriors for Christ — either spiritually, culturally or as defenders of a nastalgic Christian America — are no different in the abstract sense than jihadists of Islam. Christ doesn’t need warriors, he needs people to spread the message of love, grace, humility, and compassion; more “They Know We Are Christians By Our Love” and less “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

Pete has deep beliefs and convictions and openly shares what they mean to him on the campaign trail. I have never heard a Democratic candidate of any office share half of what their Christian faith means to them as he has.

And I’ve never heard a Republican do the same and sound even half as genuine.

As a kid, I was beat up and bullied. I know how important it is for a leader to be able to empathize with those who are marginalized, with those who feel powerless. Pete is a leader with empathy. Not only can I feel the empathy in voice or see it on his face, but it seems to radiate from his very soul. He didn’t come out as gay until well into his 30s, a guy who struggled with that process internally as a kid, as a soldier, as a mayor, and is now an authentic leader for other LGBTQ people around the world. His struggle equips him with the qualities it takes to connect with those who are marginalized. He’s nothing like the bully at the helm currently, and that matters to me.

It should matter to my family and friends.

It should matter to America.

Our LGBTQ friends, family and fellow Americans make our country better. They help build our roads, provide medical care, develop life-saving cures, compete for our favorite sports teams. They’re fighting in the same uniform, under the same flag and are every bit as American as the rest of us. They should be welcome to sing in our churches as well as the radio. We should welcome them into our homes in fellowship and to live in the same grace of God as the rest of us.

And we certainly should stand up and say they’re dang sure welcome to lead our country.

Some will say that they could never vote for a pro-choice candidate, and, trust me, I was there, too. It was a hard line in the sand for me politically.

Pete is pro-choice, a thought-out stance he has explained many times in many different settings.

When I dug into the issue, I found that my former party has continually voted to remove assistance to those young women who need it most, voted to take away prenatal care of certain groups of women, voted to limit access to contraceptives or refused to fund free access to them, which would be a budgetary drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the president’s golf trips.

My former party blames victims, usually resting on the argument of responsibility, and then pretends to be morally pure when we all know dang well they have their own skeletons and secrets. They refuse to understand that when a woman is pregnant with a nonviable child, their ardent pro-life policies put those women through an excruciatingly traumatic experience at a most tragic and desperate time in their lives. They fail to acknowledge that poverty is one of the main reasons women seek abortions.

If they truly cared about being pro-life, they would start by supporting women, lifting them up, and empowering them.

Not by electing officials who bragged about sexually assaulting them — and certainly not electing them twice.

Pete recognizes America’s capitalist economy is a strength, one that has propelled our great country forward, and doesn’t advocate for an unrealistic utopia or iron-fisted socialism. He knows how the economics of the grocery store supply chain work — literally dinner table economics — having been a consultant in that area while working in the private sector.

He understands that our latest financial crisis led to the greatest recovery our country has seen but that it overwhelmingly worked in favor for those who were already wealthy.

Towards the peak of that recovery — and against Economics 101 — the president gave the folks at the top a massive and unnecessary tax cut that fueled the stock market but left the rest of us with little to no gains. Now, we’re told by Republicans that the only way to pay for those tax cuts is to make cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Is that what the conservative Baby Boomers had in mind? That they paid into a system their whole lives, with blood, sweat and tears, only to have their Republican leadership call for cuts at their expense? That’s not the way to do things.

Conversely, Pete’s economic plan engages and lifts all Americans, and even if I don’t agree with every single piece of it, it is still better than the current path we’re on and is a step in the right direction. It’s a new balanced path of responsible democratic capitalism I’m willing to explore.

It matters that Pete understands the need for America to lead on the global stage and not shirk from its pro-democracy responsibilities or insult our allies — that he stands for a strong military, but also for one that is judicious in its use of force. It benefits us all to have a leader who is from a generation that provided the vast majority of troops to all our recent military interventions, who volunteered to serve in a time of war and who was deployed while serving as mayor.

He’s a uniter at a time our country desperately needs it. He doesn’t revel in the mockery of his opponents, or rail against his fellow Americans. He speaks with us and for us, instead of talking down to us. He is articulate, concise, intelligent, empathetic, and understands so many topics at their most nuanced level.

He’s my candidate, and I hope you give him a shot as well.

This weekend I put my first-ever bumper sticker on my vehicle, and as a former lifelong Republican, I am proud that it is for the Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg.

Ok, sure there is a magnetic backing behind the bumper sticker… :)

For bumper sticker apprehensive, these are the magnetic sheets I used.

And if you feel compelled to donate and help propel his campaign forward click here! Thanks