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This College Democrats leader explains why he just ditched his party and is mulling the GOP

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, there’s no home for political moderates in the Democratic Party anymore.

That’s why University of Massachusetts-Amherst student Michael Hout – a high-ranking, highly visible national leader in the College Democrats – is leaving the party and praising his conservative college peers for their “reasonable discourse” even when they disagree, he tells Campus Reform.

Hout is no backbencher. Until his surprise announcement, he was a national councilman for the College Democrats, former national chartering director and northeast regional director, vice president for the state chapter and president of his campus chapter.

An intern for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, he was at the campaign’s dreadful election night party.

And he sees the party going in the completely wrong direction:

“This strategy of catering to the whims of those for whom identity politics matters more than anything else, and of allowing for even anti-white, anti-male rhetoric to find a home within the party, is a large part of its untenable strategy moving forward,” Hout explained, predicting that “it will continue to cause Democrats to lose, time and time again.”

Hout thinks he may be more welcome in President-elect Trump’s Republican Party, “assuming Republicans will have me,” and among conservative students, who do not suffer the “delusional notion” of liberals “that their worldview is undeniably superior, and absolutely the ideal moral paradigm.”

He denounces the “tribalism” that says agreement on one issues necessarily requires agreement on a host of unrelated issues.

Hout also helped found a group blog last month, The American Moderate, and chairs its board of directors. He gave a fuller explanation of his decision to leave the Democratic Party in an op-ed in The Hill.

Read the story.

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