PHILADELPHIA — Free markets, free trade and defending democracy, at home and abroad: that’s John Conway’s ideal version of the United States, led by the Republican Party. In 2024, it’s also a vision far removed from reality, former President Donald Trump’s conquest of the GOP having been fully actualized, his party critics long since replaced by members of his family and others more loyal to him than the principles, however romanticized, of traditional conservatism.

Conway, director of strategy for the group Republican Voters Against Trump, is fully aware of that. He just doesn’t think that he and other conservatives should accept their party being taken over by a 78-year-old with a dubious grasp on what it takes to be a leader — “a disgusting character who doesn’t represent the best of America” — and a record of putting his own interests ahead of the republic.

“Donald Trump has really fundamentally changed what the Republican Party stands for and what the Republican Party is,” Conway said in an interview. “If you look at an issue like Ukraine, it’s unimaginable to think of a Republican Party that has taken such an isolationist turn and that doesn’t support Ukraine in their fight against Vladimir Putin.”

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It’s more Russia’s GOP than Ronald Reagan’s, as Conway sees it. And he’s not alone: Outside Independence Hall, Salon spoke with a literal busload full of disaffected Republicans who plan to take their party back — by voting blue in November. It’s part of a tour of battleground states organized by RVAT, which is itself a project of the Republican Accountability PAC founded by conservative Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and a former chair of the Log Cabin Republicans.

Voting for Vice President Kamala Harris does not come easily to those who have never voted for a Democrat before. But “we have to value our democracy above short-term policy goals,” as Conway put it. “We can always change direction in the future. What we can’t do very easily is change the damage that Donald Trump does to our democratic institutions.”

The bus tour is essentially meant to give other conservatives a pass — permission to vote for a liberal, at least just this once, to protect the Constitution from a man who issued a call to “terminate” it. Outside Independence Hall, where the RVAT bus stopped Thursday, Salon spoke to more than a half-dozen people who voted for Trump once, if not twice, but said they can’t bring themselves to do it again. Some said they were tricked by his anti-establishment rhetoric, only to realize he was just another politician looking out for himself; others always knew he was a charlatan, they said, but voted for him anyways because voting for Republicans is just what Republicans do.

Their stories — why they voted for Trump, why they broke from him and why they think other Republicans should do the same — are presented below, edited for clarity.

I was a Republican for 30 years. I just had been part of the party all of my life — I was an evangelical conservative Christian. When Trump came along, I didn't like him. I had known of Trump for many years, of course, but I always thought he just seems kind of crass and rude and all of that. But I was a Republican, and I had been indoctrinated in all the Republican rhetoric about how Hillary was the devil and she was terrible and we couldn't possibly have her in office.

After he got elected, I started to pay attention and I began to really see how he was fomenting hate among Americans. You know, rather than just people disagreeing on politics, now people were, like, literally hating one another because they disagreed, and that didn't fit with my core values.

"After he got elected, I started to pay attention and I began to really see how he was fomenting hate among Americans."

And then when January 6 happened, it was like, ‘Oh my God, we are going to lose our country. Our whole nation is just going to be done. We are going to have a civil war.’ It was very frightening. I live in a rural area. People have signs all over about, you know, ‘Welcome to Trump Hill’ and ‘Don't tread on me’ kind of stuff. And I became aware that I can't even let my neighbors know my political opinion. I wouldn't even put a sign in my yard, because there's people who are threatening. I'm a gun owner — I'm not anti-gun — but you can't even drive down the road in the community where I live without people being threatening.

Just that whole kind of conglomeration of people really fomenting hate; like he started it, but everybody else kind of glommed on and it seems like until he is done, we won't be able to heal this rift that has developed in our nation. I think our nation needs people from both sides of the fence and all the different opinions need to come together. That's what I saw Joe Biden working towards. My first Democratic vote ever was Joe Biden in 2020 and my husband and I both are planning on voting Democrat down the ballot because I don't trust the Republican Party anymore.

I think that [we] may not have the opportunity to vote again in the future. I think we can live through a season where policies are made that we don't agree with. I don't think we can live through a season where we lose democracy altogether and the right to vote. And I mean, if I'm being 100% honest, I'm concerned we're moving towards fascism. That sounds extreme, but everything that I see Trump doing and his people through Project 2025 and all of that looks an awful lot like other autocracies that have formed over this last century. And I think people need to get educated and understand this isn't just another election because you like this set of policies or that set of policies. This really is a fight for democracy.

Change. Being an outsider. The whole ‘drain the swamp’ thing got me. I was apathetic for years before that. 2016 might even have been my........

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