Gallup Poll: More Republicans turning Blue

SCREEN CAPTURE / MSNBC

Republican-turned-Democrat Kurt Bardella can be seen frequently as a political commentator.

MORE AND MORE people are getting fed up with Donald Trump's actions, policies, tweets and obsession to erase every accomplishment of President Barack Obama, according to a new Gallup Poll.

Long-time Republicans are turning against the man in the White House because of the extreme positions taken by the Trump administration. Some are so upset at what is doing to the U.S. and the Republican Party that they are becoming Democrats.

In an oped published in USA Today, Kurt Bardella, who was once considered a rising star in the GOP, declared that the endorsement of Alabama Senatorial candidatie Roy Moore was the final straw.

The Republicans “would rather elect a sexual predator who preys on underage teenagers at the local mall, than a crime-fighting prosecutor who happens to be a Democrat,” wrote Bardella, a Korean/American adoptee.

“The embrace of Moore by the Republican Party’s top 'leadership' is all the proof you need to know that this is a party that no longer stands for anything,” he wrote. “I believe that the Democratic Party will do more to create equality in America than the Republican Party ever will.

“This is not a party I want to be associated with any longer. This is not a party that is trustworthy enough to protect innocent children from sexual predators,” wrote the Korean adoptee.

For Beth Fukumoto, one of the few Republican representatives in Hawaii's legislature, the decision to turn Democrat last Spring came when she was heavily criticized and ostracized by other Republicans for taking part in the Women's March, the day after Trump's inauguration.

"What ended up being very problematic for me was that my caucus and others said, 'If you want to stay in leadership, then you need to make a commitment to not criticize the president for the remainder of his term,'" the 34-year-old told NBC News at the time. "And with what we've been seeing in the news with the different executive orders coming out every day, I didn't believe I could make that commitment."

Fukumoto has announced her plans to run for Congress to represent District 1 ... as a Democrat in 2018.

Hawaii's GOP didn't take kindly to Beth Fukumoto's decision to become a Democrat.

Thirteen House Republicans have decided not to run for reelction thus far. Some Republican senators who have had enough of Trump have decided not to run for reelection including Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Flake has even contributed to the campaign of Doug Jones, the Democrat who is running in the Alabama senate race against Roy Moore.

In the year since Trump was elected, the percentage of people who identify as or lean Republican has fallen 5 points from 42 percent of the population to 37 percent, according to the poll comparing November 2016 with November 2017.

The biggest drop of support for Republican numbers was among white women: The percentage identifying with the GOP fell 5 points from 37 percent to just 32 percent over a year, according to an NBC News report.

The Gallup poll, which was released last week also showed the percentage of voters identifying as Democratic has remained at 44 percent. The biggest gain was among voters who consider themselves independents which shows an increase of 4 percent to 14%, compared with 10% t a year ago.

The newest study reinforces earlier polls that Republicans are growing more disenchanted wiht the direction of the GOP. 

The number of Republicans with a favorable view of their own party has dropped from 88% to just 66% in the last six months in new CNN polling in September. Three in 10 Republicans (31%) say they have an unfavorable view of the party.

The data gets even worse among Trump supporters: only 56% of them say they have a positive view of the GOP -- down from 76% in March. Overall opinion of the Republican Party among all Americans has slipped to just 29% -- its lowest mark since CNN started asking the question back in 1992.

ASAM NEWS contributed to this report.
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Hawaii legislator releases letter from racist Trump supporter

INSTAGRAM
Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto is a former Republican

RACIST HATE MAIL isn’t unusual for Hawaii's state Rep. Beth Fukumoto, a 33-year-old lawmaker who resigned in March from her leadership role in the state’s Republican Party over what she called Donald Trump’s “marginalizing rhetoric” toward minorities and ethnic groups.

The Hawaii legislator shared the letter, dated Aug. 9, 2017 in an effort to bring awareness to racist rhetoric happening in the country.

"I'm so moved by what's happening nationally and I feel so frustrated and sad," Fukumoto said. The letter “was more upsetting than usual,” she told Huffington Post.

“One of the reasons that I switched parties is that I felt the Republican Party was unwilling to confront racism,” said Fukumoto, once consider one of the GOP's rising stars. “Racism specifically in the party and racism as promoted by the nominee at the time, and now the president.”

In the one-page typed letter, the sender mocks Fukumoto's Japanese heritage and links that to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The sender goes on to make vulgar statements about immigrants by calling them "parasites," and takes jabs at minorities by saying, "We Trump people hate illegals, black thugs, Muslims and bombs, and gays who do nothing but ***** 24 hrs a day." 

When she was a Republican, Fukumoto said, her colleagues would dismiss her any time she spoke of the racism and sexism she experienced or when she would point out the offensive rhetoric in Trump’s presidential campaign. She said Republican lawmakers would constantly tell her that it wasn’t true and claim, “You’re making it up. Nobody really thinks like that.”

After the events of Charlottesville, she said more leaders from both parties need to make an effort to not only condemn the hate, but to vote against hate.

"We have so many political leaders who are saying nothing or aren't saying enough," Fukumoto said. "I don't think all Republicans are racist, but I think that a significant portion of the party has been co-opted by this white nationalist undertone."

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Hawaii lawmaker quits Republicans because of Trump

SCREEN CAPTURE

Hawaii Rep. Beth Fukumoto explains why she leaving the Republican Party.

ONCE CONSIDERED a "rising star" in the Republican Party, Beth Fukumoto, a representative in Hawaii’s House, announced that she is quitting the Republicans and intends to join the Democratic Party.

On Wednesday (March 22), Fukumoto wrote a letter to the Republican Party announcing her intentions. She based her decision after receiving criticism from the GOP for remarks she made at the Women's March in Honolulu last month. In the speech she criticized Trump's controversial remarks about women, immigrants and minorities. She also cited complacency toward racism and sexism from other GOP lawmakers.

“No ethnic group in our state is a majority, and more than 70 percent of the population isn't white. But our Hawaii Republican Party leaders wanted us to adopt ‘middle American’ values instead of holding on to Republican principles that also reflect our own local values, such as responsible stewardship over things like wealth and power,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

Just a few months ago, she was being hailed as the future of the Republican Party. She was young, a member of an ethnic group and a woman. But she also held fairly progressive views touting issues affecting women and minorities. Her Japanese/American grandparents were interned during World War II.

GOP 'rising star' mulling over switching parties

Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto

ASAM NEWS

ONE OF the "rising stars" of the Republican Party, Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto is considering a switch from the GOP after she was removed from her position as Hawaii’s House minority leader earlier this week.

Fukumoto told NBC News that she no longer felt she was able to defend the Republican Party and its actions. Fukumoto claims she has been receiving criticism from the GOP since her participation in the Women’s March in Honolulu on Jan. 21.

“What ended up being very problematic for me was that my caucus and others said, ‘If you want to stay in leadership, then you need to make a commitment to not criticize the president for the remainder of his term,'” she said. After all of the executive orders that President Trump has signed since his inauguration, Fukumoto did not believe she could follow through with what her party wanted of her.

At the Women’s March in Honolulu, she spoke out against President Trump’s rise to the presidency she said was founded on racism and sexism. “It doesn’t matter to me who you voted for. People cast their votes for a lot of different reasons,” Fukumoto said. “But, no matter who your choice was, the fact remains the same. A man won the White House with anger and hate, and our kids watched it happen. Now, it’s our jobs to make sure they watch us fight back.”

Her speech at the Women’s March led to immediate responses, in the form of messages from her colleagues to meet and calls for her resignation. Republican Rep. Cynthia Thielen defended Fukumoto’s participation in the march at the caucus on Wednesday. Thielen herself also spoke at the march. “Now she is being punished by three-and-a-half of our members for participating in the democratic process,” Thielen voiced.

When another caucus member tried to divert the discussion away from the topic of the march, Thielen responded: “It’s all about the Women’s March. It’s all about Representative Fukumoto standing up for women and human rights.”

Fukumoto’s letter to her constituents this past week expressed her desire to leave the Republicans; she has said she may be joining the Democratic Party.