The problem is, a lot of people in the Republican Party don’t disagree as strongly with Buchanan as we would like to think they do.

Then they probably don’t belong in the Republican Party. The Republican creed is clear on this issue. I agree that there are Repubs who are perfectly happy to pander to any group, racists included, to get votes. But I’d rather lose elections than violate moral principles and I’ll call those politicians out every chance I get.

By the way, there are plenty of people who identify as Democrats who strongly agree with some of Buchanan’s more anti-Semitic views. Some of them are even presidential appointees. You imply that bigotry had something to do with you leaving the Republican Party, and I would actually say the same about why I defected from the Democratic Party.

I don’t doubt that your neighbors and landlord flaunted their racism, but I’ve seen signs of equally detestable bigotry from liberals. Both the left and the right need to stop pretending all the nastiness exists on one side or the other. We need to call out racism on both sides of the aisle, even our own. We’ll all be better off.

A few years ago, I had the misfortune of neighbors who proudly portrayed Nazi flags in all their bedroom windows in lieu of curtains: the stereotypical red and black swastika banner on the back windows and an SS banner in the window facing our house. During a conversation with my landlord, in which I expressed a certain dislike of said neighbors and cited the banners as one reason for that dislike, my landlord expressed his solidarity with the sentiments behind the flags.

While I don’t want to overstate the strength or importance of said attitudes in the South or among the Christian right, I don’t want to understate them either. I think a lot of conservatives underestimate the real importance of racism and sectarian bigotry in the cultural make-up of the current Republican base.

It is worth noting that I was a Republican once and that there are real reasons why I am not anymore.