Dozens of officials from ex-President George W. Bush’s administration say that the GOP’s fealty to former President Donald Trump, even after he incited the deadly Capitol siege, is driving them away from the party, according to Reuters.
Jimmy Gurulé, who served as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Reuters that “[t] Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists.”
“I’d call it the cult of Trump,” he said.
Kristopher Purcell, one of Bush’s White House communications officials, is also defecting from the GOP-and claimed that roughly 60 to 70 of his ex-colleagues are too.
“The number is growing every day,” he told Reuters.
It isn’t just Trump himself who’s apparently prompting the officials to jump ship, according to Purcell. It’s also far-right extremists Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who have both touted the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.
Greene in particular has emerged as a deeply toxic agitator, having endorsed jaw-dropping calls to execute Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), while regurgitating racist and anti-Semitic remarks and claiming the Parkland high school shooting was a false flag operation.
Few Republicans have spoken out against the Georgia lawmaker.
Let them wander in the wilderness, the Democrats do not need to lean to the right.
You know it’s bad when Bush people are calling it crazy.
Waiting for John Yoo to say it’s torture being a registered Republican these days.
Pithy, vacuous declarations are cheap.
My question is, where are they going? I seriously doubt they are gonna start voting D. Are they just abstaining?
Until there is another “conservative” option, I don’t believe these folks. If an option arises, I think a number of them will truly jump ship. But I also don’t believe that option is the “Libertarian” party.
How do we get to the viable choice? If all of these influential, jaded former pols/administrators/donors put in the work to create that option, it can succeed. But until that option exists - and is “marketed” as a truly “conservative” option to all the disaffected R’s out there - then the “cult of Trump” will continue to thrive.
Time will tell. There certainly is a groundswell of angst among a significant portion of Republican voters. It can happen, but I don’t know it will.