Ever since the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, and more particularly since the presidential election this past November, I have been astounded to the point of being shocked by some of my fellow citizens, specifically high-ranking Republicans.

By profession, I was a diplomat. I served for 33 years, starting under President Ronald Reagan and retiring during Barak Obama’s presidency, hence under both Republican and Democrat presidents. A question I frequently got over the years was, “What do you do when your personal views conflict with those of the President?” That was an easy one for me to answer. When I joined, I swore allegiance to the Constitution, not to any particular president or party. Across my career, I came across no issues that so sorely taxed my conscience that I felt honor bound to resign. In general, few Foreign Service Officers resign. Some had resigned, before my time, during the Vietnam War, and a few did resign, during my time, over U.S. policy in Bosnia, but in general I and most other Foreign Service Officers were comfortable with the foreign policy set by both Republican and Democrat presidents. Foreign policy generally involved a bipartisan consensus, and the maxim that “politics stops at the water’s edge” was generally observed, meaning that once a policy in the international sphere was set politicians from both parties respected it when traveling overseas and did not seek to question or undermine it.

I began having issues when President George W. Bush assumed office. I doubted the wisdom of invading Iraq, along with many of my Foreign Service colleagues—but the decision had broad bipartisan support, so it did not hurt my conscience to support U.S. policy on this matter.

Broad bipartisan support for international policies stopped when Donald J. Trump assumed the presidency.

Broad bipartisan support for international policies stopped when Donald J. Trump assumed the presidency. It became obvious fairly quickly that the new president was intent on destroying the world order that had been in place since the end of World War II. He attacked our allies and friends, buddied up with our enemies and opponents, withdrew us from international organizations that the United States had been instrumental in establishing, and took us from being the leader of the first world to being an unreliable, erratic, and unreasonable partner.

I had retired by the time Trump was sworn in as president. A few non-Foreign Service friends asked me the same question about serving as a diplomat in the Trump administration. I answered as honestly as I could: if I were still serving, I think I would be forced to resign for reasons of conscience and policy. I did nothing, however, to make my views known widely.

I have been wrestling with this for the last few days. Since the election of Donald J. Trump, and especially since the November election, I have been fuming about what I perceive as cowardice on the part of Republican leaders. How could they support a man who openly admitted sexually assaulting women? How could they let him get away with encouraging racism and bigotry? How could they allow him to kiss up to totalitarians like Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un and still go along with him on foreign policy? What has happened to the Republican party? More generally, what has happened to my country that such a man is supported by so many?

Let me digress and say that I started my political life at 15 when I joined the Teenage Republicans (TAR) in my home state of Louisiana and started going to state and national summer youth camps for TARs. At that time, in Louisiana, everyone was a Democrat, and state politics had been that way since the Civil War. There just weren’t any Republicans in Louisiana. My whole family was intensely political, not in the sense of being politicians but in the sense of holding strong political views. I grew up listening to pro- and anti-Long arguments being passionately debated, 25 years after Huey P. Long was assassinated. Political passions in Louisiana do not ebb quickly.

I bucked that history and became a Republican, following the lead of my eldest brother, another family member who held passionate political views. He viewed the Democrat party in Louisiana as corrupt, which it was, and thought the only way to fix the situation was to have strong two-party government. I liked that reasoning and became active in TARs.

I continued my interest while at Rice University. I was asked to start a group to support the 1970 Senate campaign of George H.W. Bush, and I did so. I liked everything I learned about Mr. Bush, including his principled stand on civil rights issues. Years later, I became an early supporter and activist in his 1980 presidential campaign. I worked as a researcher at his national headquarters in Houston and served as a precinct co-chair in the Houston Heights, which Bush carried in the 1980 Republican primary. My husband and I subsequently attended the national convention in Detroit, with my husband selected to be a Bush delegate.

I started this digression because I want to be clear that I then adhered to, and still adhere to, certain principles: responsible fiscal policies including a balanced budget, a strong defense policy, and equal rights for all citizens, no matter the race, religion, or gender. Many Republican leaders, including George H.W. Bush, had made principled stands on civil rights, in Mr. Bush’s case even at the cost of losing an election in 1970.

My Foreign Service career began in 1981. As a Foreign Service Officer and federal employee, I could no longer be active in partisan politics. Congress passed the Hatch Act in 1939 to prevent active partisan campaigning by federal employees. I thought the restrictions were fair and reasonable in that in my job I was representing all of the American people all of the time. I did my best to comply with all guidance on how to follow the Hatch Act rules. Gradually, I came to think of myself as an independent, neither Republican nor Democrat.

I represented the United States proudly and faithfully for 33 years, the majority of those years overseas. I told contacts, truthfully, things about the United States both mundane and fundamental. I assured them that: (1) the water is safe to drink from taps in the USA; you don’t have to boil water or buy bottled water. (2) No one is above the law in the United States. (3) The American dream is alive and well. Hard work can lead a new citizen to positions of great influence and wealth. (4) The United States adamantly opposes torture. It doesn’t work, and it leads to bad information.

Occasionally over those years, some things disturbed me. I was bothered that in Louisiana citizens moved en masse from the Democrat to Republican party, seemingly because they could not abide offering equal rights to other citizens. I was embarrassed that racist David Duke could run for a high political position as a Republican in my home state of Louisiana and almost win. At least he was repudiated by most Republican leaders of the time.

I was a passionate supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, and I was furious—and still am—that my right as a woman to equal treatment under the law is still not written into our Constitution. I was sorely disappointed that my party, Republicans, led the opposition to the ERA.

During my career, I organized information and training sessions on sexual harassment, and I knew that what President Clinton had done with an intern constituted sexual harassment and was highly inappropriate and unprofessional, even if the intern willingly participated in it.

So, I was not a complete Pollyanna about the United States, but by and large I thought we were acting like a great nation should.

Having returned to the United States for a posting in Washington, DC, after 9/11, I was shocked to hear American citizens vociferously demanding on talk radio shows that the United States torture prisoners of war. What? My country stood adamantly opposed to that until 9/11. Did we lose our moral convictions because of an attack?

The Flint, Michigan, water disaster was another shock to my sense of my country. What? Our citizens can’t even rely on drinking potable water? That’s a third world problem, not first world.

The inability of hardworking people to make enough money to raise a family was also very troubling to me. I grew up in a time when a working father could support his family comfortably in the middle class. When did families start having to have two wage earners or multiple jobs in order just to keep their heads above water? Why are working people so desperate and unable to rise to the middle class in this wealthy country?