As President Donald Trump continues to violate the norms of office with every passing day, the call for Republicans to step in and denounce his actions publicly has grown ever louder.
Even after Trumps recent racist tweets, calling on four non-white Congresswomen to "go back to their own countries," only four Republicans voted with Democrats to condemn his words.
But many others, including Elsa Alcala, a former Republican Judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, can no longer stand idly by.
In a recent Facebook post, Alcala finally made public her true feelings about the President.
Judge Alcala's rant was reposted to the subreddit r/MurderedByWords, where it went viral with over 36 thousand upvotes.
"It has taken me years to say this publicly but here I go. President Trump is the worst president in the history of this country. I have had long discussions with friends who support him who say, "He is an embarrassment on x but he's been great about y and the Democrats are terrible about z."
Even accepting that Trump has had some successes (and I believe these are few), at his core, his ideology is racism. To me, nothing positive about him could absolve him of his rotten ore. Nothing anyone could ever say on FB or anywhere else could ever convince me otherwise.
In the next election, I will vote in the Democratic primary for the first time in over 20 years. I hope Democrats rise to the occasion and put forth some very qualified candidates and that every polling station will be overwhelmed with voters. the current Republican Party supports Trump so I cannot support that party in Texas or nationally.
The past Republican administrations were not Trump-like (they wanted an inclusive party) and I appreciate their past support of me but that is no more. Please don't lecture me about abortion because today Trump's actions are resulting in the deaths of live humans in other ways.
There is no moral high ground by Republicans on abortion or the value of life. And don't tell me to go back where I came from. My relatives have been in this Texas area since it was before the SA and I was born in the USA. My English is probably better than yours and my Spanish is mostly Spanglish (I wish my Spanish was better).
I spent 20 years in government service to help the people of our country and I love our country and it's people. And I have given more to this country than the vast majority of people. What I know for sure is that we, as a country, are better than this. To me, any of the viable Democratic presidential candidates are superior to the status quo.
You may unfriend me if you wish and I will unfriend you if you choose to be rude in your response. I don't plan to be political too much on social media but I needed to say this publicly for my own conscience (I've been saying it privately since Trump was a candidate)."
Str8_OuttaThemyscira had a feeling they'd get along with the judge.
"I wish to be her friend."
Monctonian also pointed out a disturbing fact that many of us don't even notice any more:
"As a non-american, just the idea of a judge with political affiliations is pretty disturbing on its own."
WhoCanTell said that empathy can make all the difference:
"In my experience, biggest difference between left and right is empathy. The right are not incapable of it, but it is very localised. A right-wing person that has a view that is an outlier from the rest of their party, tends to be because that topic has touched their life in some way.
My Dad is a prime example. I can get him to soften his opinions very easily just by saying "what would you do in that situation?" and very quickly he'll come back to centre"
kat_fud did disagree with Alcala on one point:
"Racism has been a cornerstone of the Republican Party ever since Nixon's southern strategy, but they usually kept it low-key so they could deny it when they were called out."
On Twitter, many praised the judge for her decision.
Many hoped this was the beginning of a Republican split from President Trump.
Sometimes, standing up for your beliefs means being brave enough to go against your political party.
If your loyalty is to the betterment of your country over any political party, you can express that with this shirt, available here in a variety of colors and sizes for men and women.
Judge Elsa Alcala inspired many by doing just that.