The High Plains Drifter didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left him.
I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21, because he promised to get us out of the Korean War,†he told GQ. “And over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And libertarians had more of it. Because what I really believe is, let’s spend a little more time leaving everybody alone.