I used to be a stalwart Republican. I voted Republican in every election until Donald Trump ran for President. (I voted for Barack Obama’s second term, but I still voted Republican down ballot. I had no qualms about doing that because I believed at the time that sharing power across parties acted as a check on that power and helped prevent extremism.)

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, I, along with many others, thought it was a joke. He was clearly not fit to be President, and I believed rank and file Republicans along with party leaders would quickly show him the door. I reckoned too naively that others would see what I thought was obvious from the start: that he was egotistical, misogynistic, and elitist; that he believed himself to be shrewd and cunning because he had money; and that his brief stint in Hollywood had made him a celebrity but not made him wise.

I was wrong.

I was not wrong about Donald Trump, but I was wrong about people. I had no idea how great was their capacity for believing what they wanted to believe, for admiring wealth and celebrity for its own sake, and for falling in line behind a demagogue who craved only more money and power. When Trump won the election, I was dismayed and flabbergasted. Still, I thought, Congress would provide a check on his ambitions. His own party would not let him ride roughshod over law and Presidential tradition. Yet he kept violating laws with impunity. He ignored the Hatch act. He ignored the Constitutional emoluments clause. He deliberately increased suffering for migrants at our southern border as a deterrent to immigration by separating families in ways that made it difficult if not impossible to reunite them. When he ran for re-election, he brazenly asked for Russia to interfere to help him get elected.

People who crossed him, especially those who formerly supported him, became targets of his vindictive ire. He tried to get the Department of Justice to pursue legal cases against his enemies, despite lack of evidence for building a case. Fortunately, there were some within his administration who refused to do his bidding. They tried to manage him by distracting him with opinion polls and conspiracy theories. These efforts worked for a time, but he surrounded himself more and more with loyalists who would do whatever he asked.

When he lost the election to then Vice President Joe Biden, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he was finally gone. Instead, he spread false stories about election corruption and insisted that the election had been stolen from him. Again, Republican secretaries of state stood up to him, guaranteeing that the elections they had conducted were fair and impartial. Even in Arizona, where the state legislature decreed that an independent, conservative organization would recount all the ballots and investigate claims of election fraud, no substantial fraud was found, and they were not able to make a case for changing Arizona’s electoral votes. He lost but refused to concede.

Then on January 6th of 2020, he instigated an attack on the Capitol where Congress was meeting to certify the election results. He inflamed his most ardent followers and pandered to their belief that their cause was righteous, blessed by God. He fractured the evangelical church and made a mockery of them. (I know the fracture lines were already there from decades of Republican pandering on abortion, making promises they did not intend to keep. Trump kept his promises, but not in a life-affirming way. His methods are so at odds with the gospel of Jesus Christ that it still amazes me that Christians of any stripe support him.) The insurrection was foiled by the Capitol police, but not without causing deaths and destruction and endangering federal elected officials, including the Vice President. Trump found himself thwarted again by people who were doing their jobs, upholding the law.

For his actions he was impeached a second time. Again, the party fearing the radicalized base of Trump’s supporters, fell into line and acquitted him. Some assuaged their consciences by saying that since Trump was no longer President, he could no longer be impeached. Any criminal charges would have to be filed by the Department of Justice. Of course, meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers were already preparing arguments that Trump was immune from prosecution for actions taken as President. Once again, it seemed he would escape any accountability for his actions.

Then came the state of New York’s case against Trump for falsifying business records. He has characterized it as a politically motivated witch hunt, but the fact remains that he was convicted by a jury of twelve randomly selected citizens on 34 counts of falsifying records to conceal payment of hush-money to a porn star for fear its revelation would tank his candidacy. Despite this conviction, he still has support from roughly half of eligible US voters. How can half of voters still support this man? How can a once noble party—the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower—be so in thrall to him that almost without exception they remain loyal to him? How could I remain a Republican when Republicans have become craven opportunists more concerned with re-election than with truth and justice?

We are on the eve of an election with a choice between a woman who has proven her integrity and capacity to govern wisely and proportionately and a man who has demonstrated time and again that he values nothing so much as personal loyalty to Donald Trump, not even the Constitution or the rule of law. To me there is no choice. I would vote for Kamala Harris if she were the most liberal politician to ever seek public office, so long as she does not seek to mobilize the Department of Justice and the FBI against her political enemies, foment violence against Republicans, or whine about being persecuted. She won’t do any of those things. Instead, if elected, she will actually apply herself to the task of governing. She won’t pardon herself for prior crimes or surround herself with yes-sayers who only reflect back to her what she wants to hear.

I know that this screed will not change anyone’s mind. I also understand how news silos work to reinforce our beliefs and keep us from deeply considering how wrong we might be. I’m not immune to such influences myself. Yet I still think of myself as a fairly conservative guy. Trump is not and has never been conservative. He is radical and very dangerous. I hope America does not re-elect him.