Saturday, June 18, 2016

West Virginia mayor bolts GOP because of all the fascism

If West Virginia was the only state still trending Republican, it looks like that shoe may be about to drop.

Danny Jones is the longtime mayor of Charleston, West Virginia - and was elected repeatedly as a Republican. Now he's announced that he's leaving the party and becoming an independent.

Why? Because it bips. No, seriously, Jones is leaving the GOP because of the party's burgeoning extremism. He cites Donald Trump's nomination and Republican lawmakers' obsession with misnamed "religious liberty" bills as reasons for leaving the party. Jones said, "I'm basically a city guy, and I believe live and let live and stay out of each other's bedroom."

Apparently, the right-wing establishment hated Jones anyway. They called him a "liberal" because of his stance on the local commuter tax and other issues. This despite the fact that he had supported Republican candidates for years.

I bet he's not the last high-profile public official in a place like Charleston to dump the GOP this year.