Several years ago when I moved to Oklahoma (2005), I continued my political registration as Republican. I even worked very hard to network and build the party with grassroots efforts supporting conservative, constitutional, pro-life, liberty loving folks. Silly me, I thought we were saying the same things. Long story short, many of us worked hard to build the party around issues and candidates espousing those issues.
In 2008 we grew, and in 2012 many actually believe we had a winning number, but were cheated out of the convention. In 2015 we elected one of us as chair of the party, Randy Brogdon. He was in the process of restoring the financial footing of a floundering party and in the process of moving forward when some in the GOP made his personal life miserable to the point that he resigned for the sake of his family. We witnessed the politics of destruction. I believe that is when the Republican party in Oklahoma actually died. It took another year or so for the mask to actually come off.
We can disagree and have debates; then we count votes to determine who wins and who loses. However, when we destroy our own members, the body will eventually die. When we shut out people we disagree with and refuse to have the conversations to discuss the differences, when we only post favorable comments on social media in party groups, when we refuse to live by our own rules and give a pass and $$$ to elected officials who violate our own platform, the end is near.
I would note that attendance continues to decline even though it is a presidential year. Then when discussion moved to issues this weekend, the mask really came off notably on right to bear arms and pro-life facade for party. Many will be moving to Independent status or other parties. Most will stop giving funds to the GOP and giving directly to more trustworthy candidates and grassroots efforts.
I will be writing more on the topic of political parties and why our founding fathers did not recommend them (hopefully soon).  In the meantime here is a post I did on topic recently —  As Political Alignments Shift.  And further back, I suggested that maybe we should get back to this — Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly.  The fault does not lie with only one side.  It is about how we treat one another as we go.
To which I added my comment here: My headline would be OKGOP moves back to the phone booth for meetings. I would note that attendance continues to decline even though it is a presidential year. Then when discussion moved to issues, the mask really comes off notably on right to bear arms and pro-life facade for party. Many will be moving to Independent status or other parties. Most will stop giving funds to the GOP and giving directly to more trustworthy candidates and grassroots efforts. In fact I think I’ll go write an article on topic now… (see article above)
Highlighting some of the most important senate races across the state here in this post but you can see all the endorsements from the NRA here >>>.
Finding Gems and Sharing Them 