Back in 2015, before he turned Trump sycophant and boot-licker out of fear, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham warned in a CNN interview: “If Donald Trump is the nominee, that’s the end of the Republican Party.”
It turns out that Graham was right.
That brings us to a an opinion piece by Alan W. Steelman, a former GOP Congressman (1973-77) and U.S. Senate candidate (1976) from Texas, published over the weekend in The Dallas Morning News about why he is a Republican for Kamala Harris. He also supported Joe Biden in 2020.
Steelman opened his commentary quite strongly:
The party I joined as a 10-year-old in 1952 needs an exorcism. That’s why I’ve joined thousands of other Republicans, including former governors, senators, congressmen, Trump administration officials and members of the Trump family to support Kamala Harris in this year’s election.
My party’s exorcism requires joining arms with our historic adversary, the Democratic Party, as a temporary means to restore the rich, 150-year-old Republican legacy and the noble principles on which it was founded.
Now as Democrats, we like to say that the Republican Party has been on a steady path of devolution from Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush to Donald Trump.
But as a conservative Republican seeking to convince party members to vote for Harris, Steelman takes a different tack.
He considers Trump to be an aberration on the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan (“who hastened the dissolution of the Soviet Union: `Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall’) and George W. Bush (“and compassionate conservatism”).
Steelman wrote:
“Today’s party and its nominee bear no resemblance to these precedents. Supporting Donald Trump is simply a bridge too far for those of us who have labored in the trenches, as campaign volunteers, poll watchers or candidates for office of this great party.
“Doing so requires overlooking a businessman who declared bankruptcy six times, who stands convicted of financial fraud and ordered to pay $485 million, who was convicted of sexual abuse and ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages, who instigated an insurrection and the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
To underscore Steelman’s point, just compare the 2024 Democratic and Republican conventions. Democrats enthusiastically embraced their party’s legacy, while Trump and his MAGA acolytes erased their party’s legacy.
At the Democratic National Convention, the featured speakers included the Clintons, Obamas and Bidens. Two other Democratic presidents were represented by their grandsons — Jason Carter (Jimmy Carter) and Jack Schlossberg (John F. Kennedy).
At the Republican National Convention, the speakers did not include any former Republican presidential or vice presidential candidate since 2000 — except for Trump himself.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who during the primary campaign had declared Trump “unhinged” and not mentally fit to serve as president, humiliated herself by recanting and offering her “strong endorsement” of Trump in her speech to the RNC.
Conservative commentator Meghan McCain even thanked a speaker at the DNC, Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, who called her late father, Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, “an American hero” deserving of respect. Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, who described himself as a McCain Republican, endorsed Harris in his speech to the DNC.
Former President George W. Bush, despite being trashed regularly by Trump, has largely stayed away from politics. His Vice President Dick Cheney made his feelings clear when he supported his daughter, Liz Cheney’s unsuccessful primary bid in Wyoming to keep her House seat, calling Trump a “coward” and a “threat” to the country.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen, Mitt Romney of Utah, and his 2012 running mate, former House Speaker Paul Ryan have each declared that they will not vote for Trump in 2024, although they haven’t gone so far as to endorse Harris.
Among the reasons Pence cited for not endorsing Trump dealt with foreign policy. Pence said Trump and his most ardent supporters are advocating “a more isolationist view, which is not my view of the proper role of the United States or the Republican Party.”
Ryan told Fox News, “If you put yourself above the Constitution, as he (Trump) has done, I think that makes you unfit for office.”
Romney said his reasons for not voting for Trump went beyond his isolationist foreign policy. The Utah senator told CNN: “Having a president who is so defaulted of character would have an enormous impact on the character of America. And for me, that’s the primary consideration.”
Basically the GOP’s former standard-bearers became non-persons at the RNC, which more appropriately should have been called the MAGA Party Congress because it was only about Trump.
Last month, The Washington Post surveyed the 42 people who held Cabinet-level positions during Trump’s administration. Only 24 of them have publicly endorsed his 2024 candidacy.
The GOP is no longer a mainstream conservative political party. Instead it is the American counterpart to far-right, anti-immigration, Ukraine-skeptic parties in Europe — Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party, Marine LePen’s National Assembly in France, and the Alternative for Germany.
But what’s even worse are the close ties that Trump, his running mate JD Vance and the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025, have with Hungary’s Putin-friendly authoritarian leader Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party. Heritage’s President Kevin Roberts has called Orban’s “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” a model for the U.S.
Trump, in his acceptance speech at the RNC, praised Orban as a “very tough man” like himself and welcomed his endorsement.
What’s even more alarming is that Trump has created a cult of personality among his MAGA Republican cohorts even though he’s shown increasing signs in his speeches and social media posts that he’s mentally unfit for office.
In his opinion piece, Steelman referenced warnings from Trump’s own family members about his character flaws make him unfit he is for the presidency. His older sister, the late federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry said her brother “has no principles. None. None. … You can’t trust him.” His niece, clinical psychologist Mary Trump: “For my whole life I have witnessed my uncle’s narcissism and cruelty.” And his nephew, Fred Trump III, said, “My Uncle Donald is atomic crazy.”
Steelman said he’s joined Republicans for Harris because Trump has broken with “the five principles that historically have defined our party.”
— The Constitution: Supporting and defending the U.S. Constitution, including “acceptance of the vote of the people … and support for the peaceful transition of power. He called the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the capital “one of the darkest days in American history.”
— Union: Standing “against the divisive tactics … that divide `us against them’ by exploiting emotions of grievance and rage. He said this applies to both the right and the left.
— Fiscal responsibility: He said “Republicans have joined Democrats in abandoning this responsibility” by exploding the national debt. He pointed out that Trump added $8.4 trillion to the national debt.
— Free enterprise: Opposing “big government interventions” such as high protective tariffs and price controls. (Trump has proposed imposing 10% across-the-board tariffs on all products imported into the U.S. from overseas).
— Peace through strength: A strong America must be “steadfast in opposing the aggression of Russia and other hostile regimes” and “unwavering in our support for our allies.” Steelman said that Trump has expressed admiration for the country’s greatest adversary, Putin, and been critical of NATO, our most important military alliance.
Now remember that Steelman is writing from the perspective of a mainstream conservative Republican who supported Reagan. But the more of these Republicans who can be persuaded to vote for Harris, the better her chances of winning in November.
Steelman concluded by writing:
Exorcisms aren’t easy. This path will be a difficult one for many. But this one time, it is incumbent on we who treasure the rich legacy of our party and its ideals to cast a vote for the other party’s nominee.
In the 1973 film The Exorcist, the exorcism ceremony required a Catholic priest summoned by the mother of a young girl possessed by a demon. In this case, there is no cleric available to come and conduct this ceremony for us — just each of us voting this November.
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