Now that I’ve left the Republican Party, I am often asked why I simply haven’t become a Democrat. In part it’s because I don’t agree with the progressive wing of the party: Some of them are as protectionist, isolationist and fiscally irresponsible as President Donald Trump. But it’s also because, after having spent my entire adult life in one ideological bubble, I don’t want to join another. I refuse to make excuses for Trump – and I don’t want to be tempted to make excuses for a future Democratic president, either, as so many did for Bill Clinton after his sexual misconduct. Jerry Taylor, formerly of the Cato Institute and now president of the Niskanen Center, explained the dangers of ideology in an important essay about why he no longer calls himself a libertarian. Ideological allegiances, he argues, impede the search for truth: “Given our very human tendency to filter out information that does not comport with our worldviews – and excessive attention to information that comports with the same – the more we repair to our ideological lenses, the more distorted they become thanks to a spiraling process of confirmation bias.” Taylor now prefers to pursue “moderation” rather than any ideological worldview. So do I.