No, it could not. US Party membership is a formal designation - one registers as a Party member. Meanwhile, whether or not someone "is a Democrat" is secondary - almost irrelevant - to the key fact of US politics for the past thirty years or so, which can be shorthanded thus: From this guy: http://driftglass.blogspot.com Or, slightly expanded, same source ( http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2019/02/mutually-assured-democracy.html ): Or, background, different source: https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/after-storm-delegitimizing-clinton-win.html
I'm registered as an independent. Right now neither party represents me well - although the democrats are certainly the lesser of two evils currently.
As a Canadian, I would describe the Democrats as "not completely lost yet". The Republicans are, I think, beyond redemption.
If I were to live in the United States, voting would be a no brainer. The Republicans are now the party of Trump. No sensible person would vote for them.* --- * P.S. No, actually, that's not fair. If one has certain vested interests, then a vote for the Republicans can make sense on a personal level. But if you care at all about your fellow Americans, the state of the nation, the global situation, etc., then the choice ought to be obvious.
The Republican Party did not become a shitpile of fundies, bigots, and imbeciles in the summer of 2016. The Republican Party has not changed, in its basics, since Reagan. Newt Gingrich, who talked a lot like Trump, handed around the GOPAC memo in 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOPAC Rush Limbaugh received is "Majority Maker" award for ushering in the Republican Congress of 1994. That's 25 years ago. He did it by talking like Trump on the radio. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/12/...&gwh=C45BB677F553D54C2DC03383D5735F2A&gwt=pay In fashionable photographic form: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OjYwlqNc...GAs/s1600/Holy_Shit_By_All_Never_Trumpers.jpg Trump=Republican. Republican=Trump. That has been the case since 1984 at the latest.
His voter registration cards show us this: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/donald-trump-voter-history-764812 Not much evidence of Party affiliation there, or even of him changing his mind about anything in particular. How he actually voted is of course not known.
I considered myself a centrist democrat, but I've lost all hope in the party, so I switched. If they offer any hope in the future, I might switch back
To fascism? For the hope it offers? Authoritarian violence against the inferior, lower taxes for the rich.
Hmm. I've lost most of my hope in both parties, too. But while the democratic party is often inept and self-defeating, the GOP has become downright evil. I'd rather support the party that comes up with unworkable green new deals and puts too much emphasis on welfare, than the party that rips kids from families and puts them in cages.
That's a word in much use these days. It loses its meaning every time it's used by those with no argument. That sounds really, really bad. Perhaps those children would do better in a detention center with their parents (assuming they are their real parents). Anyways, it's our responsibility to sort it all out when they cross the border illegally? Curses on those who deal with the problem every day.