At some point in my life I have called myself both "Republican" and "Democrat." I have never considered myself to be a conservative because I'm simply not into organized religion at all and therefore don't really follow any principle attached to it. However, a lot of the ideas Republicans STATE I agree with. At some point several years ago I realized that what they say and do are COMPLETELY different things and lost all faith in them. I then switched over to the Democrats whom I liked better anyway for multiple reasons from environmentalism, less focus on abortion and religion, hopefully less wars, etc. I'm quickly realizing that Republicans and Democrats are two different sides of the same coin and any perceived differences between them are just an avenue to divide the country. My new saying recently has been "The only thing worse than a Democrat or a Republican is a partisan." It may not make much sense, but hopefully it gets my point across.
Politics in America are fucked. They have became a complete joke to me and are nothing more than a corrupt divisive game. They all do the same stupid shit, it's just a matter of which party says the things an individual agrees with, not what they actually stand for. Hoping for anything else is hopeless.
I think I'll stand by my statement that the only way significant change will occur in American politics is with another massive event (some type of disaster, be it war, natural, economic, etc.) that will not allow politics to operate as usual. That doesn't mean the change will be a good thing either. My point is that the system is too entrenched to be changed by anything other than force . . . whatever that force may be.