GOP protection racket crumbles: Republicans now have cover to come out as anti-Trump [View all]

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GOP protection racket crumbles: Republicans now have cover to come out as anti-Trump
At last week's Democratic National Convention, former Trump White House staffers got on stage and spoke the truth

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published August 26, 2024 10:06AM (EDT)
Updated August 26, 2024 12:10PM (EDT)


(Salon) Someone once asked me who I thought would be the Democratic equivalent of Donald Trump would be. My answer: Kanye West. He's world-famous, extremely wealthy, narcissistic, unstable, politically ambitious, lacks any self-awareness and is manifestly unfit — except it turned out that he's actually a right-wing anti-semite. I might have answered Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at one time, except he's now endorsed Donald Trump. I'm sure there must be some truly crazy lefty out there who would be a bridge too far for many Democrats but that combination of authoritarianism, pathological character flaws, overwhelming ignorance and demagogic talent seems to inevitably drift toward the right these days.

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But it seems to me that the big difference between these GOP apostates and the Democrats who left the party to join the Reagan Revolution or back George W. Bush is the fact that the Democratic apostates left their party over policy differences. They didn't like what they saw as the leftward ideological drift of the Democrats so they moved over to the Republicans, There were plenty of voters who went that way too, especially during the Reagan years.

But the Republicans who've spoken at the last two Democratic conventions have done so almost exclusively out of disgust with Donald Trump, personally, and his lack of ideological principles. It's true that there was some talk about the Democrats being better on foreign policy with support for Ukraine and opposition to authoritarian tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un, but for the most part, their entreaties to vote for Harris were simply based upon the need to defeat Trump because of his bad character, criminality and dangerous unfitness. Some even went so far as to say that Harris needs to be elected in order to save the Republican Party from the MAGA cult.

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But they aren't the only Republicans who know the threat exists. Former Attorney General Bill Barr knows that Trump tried to overturn a legitimate election. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell understands that Donald Trump was a disaster as president. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley made it clear that she thinks Donald Trump is unfit to hold office. Yet they are all voting for him anyway. Whether it's because they have Fox News brain rot and are convinced that Antifa is the greatest threat America faces, as Bill Barr does, or that loyalty to the GOP brand is paramount, as McConnell does, they are simply incapable of reacting seriously to the threat. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/08/26/protection-racket-crumbles-now-have-cover-to-come-out-as-anti/