It’s been a good run. I am at a point however, where I can no longer be part of a party that thinks Donald Trump is a “leader.” If the GOP electorate is so petulant as to believe that a man who suffers from some kind of sociopathic narcissism is the best person to “lead” the party, then what’s the point of sticking around?

The irony here of course is the same people have been railing for the last 7.5 years about Barack Obama suffering from the same kind of condition. How many times has the President made some kind of public event whether or good or bad about himself? Some of the most egregious examples have been the President having photos taken of himself to mark historic events.

Yet now they’re embracing somebody who sees the Presidency, not as a serious commitment to public service but rather his own personal Fantasy Island. His goal is to win the Presidency not be an effective President.  That should be obvious to anybody as Trump’s positions on issues change on a near daily basis. Trump’s views and positions on issues don’t evolve. They go through a time warp and people are left scratching their heads as not only does he change his views, but with a straight face claims he never held the opposing viewpoint. I guess part of why Trump has been so successful is like many politicians, he has this innate ability to lie without shame.

Now comes word of this new poll where GOP voters were asked who would they rather lead the party, Donald Trump or Speaker of The House, Paul Ryan. The results are disheartening to say the least, at least to those of us who would have rather avoided this end:

Add leader of the Grand Old Party to Donald Trump’s list of accomplishments now that he’s the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

A majority of Republican and Republican-leaning voters trust him more than Paul Ryan to lead the party in 2016.

The only positive news I can take away from this is it is a NBC News/Survey Monkey poll which is an online poll. Still, the results are not something one would expect.

Ryan to his credit, tossed it back to Trump saying he agreed with the poll results since Trump will be the GOP nominee for President. It doesn’t change the fact these are sobering results. Donald Trump’s campaign has been the complete opposite of Reagan’s vision of a “shining city on a hill.” Trump instead sees us as a country in shambles and only he can solve our issues.

To be sure, after nearly eight years of President Obama, the country is not exactly thriving. But it is also not the hotbed of negativity Trump says it. What’s worse is Trump’s “solutions” are not based on free market solutions and liberty but rather iron fisted authoritarianism that requires an even more expansive federal government.

With a new generation of political leaders emerging in the last five years, it’s a really sobering thought that we’re taking such a large step backward with a nominee like Donald Trump.