Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Michael Steele announced on Tuesday morning that he would be voting for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden instead of his own party’s standard-bearer, President Donald Trump.
Steele, who served as RNC chair from 2009 to 2011, stated in a NBC News op-ed that he “cannot support the nominee of my party.”
“Rather than seeking to build on the legacy of the Republican Party’s founders, of which Trump is surely ignorant, Trump has posited a single purpose for the GOP — the celebration of him,” Steele asserted.
“Consequently, America has watched as the Republican Party stopped pursuing its animating principles of freedom and opportunity,” he continued. “It has given up its voice on things that mattered and instead bent the arc of the party towards the baser motives of one man, who is neither a Republican nor a conservative.”
Steele noted that he disagrees with Biden “on many issues and policies, sometimes vigorously.”
“But this election is not about those issues or policies,” the ex-RNC chair wrote. “Rather, it is about the course of a nation and the character of her people reflected in the leader they choose.”
Steele’s announcement follows a string of endorsements from some former GOP officials, including ex-governors and lawmakers, who have broken from their party to endorse Biden.
While I appreciate his sentiment, and the guy was never altogether bad, I don’t think he holds much sway in the party anymore.
The GOP has had its heart ripped out over the last dozen or so years. Steele was part of the rooting out of humanity.
Steele endorsing Biden is hardly a surprise, but his statement made a point that should be made by everyone who is running against a member of the GOP: that the animating principle of the party has become the celebration of Trump. Here in my reddest of red states, all of the GOP runs on the claim that they are with Trump, that they support Trump, and that the opponent will be a Pelosi-supporting socialist. In the primary it was even worse, but now in the general the Dems are running on the idea that they are for Oklahoma, while the GOP is running on their support of Trump.
It’s Trump’s Party.
Your Party died the second Trump was sworn in.
I think that the GOP has been turning into a rotten steaming pile of corporate and 1% welfare pushing assholes for a while… the turn into a blind psychotic death cult happened over the last 4 years, and has been pretty staggering… I’ve been trying to think how they may reinvent themselves, but at this point, it’s trumps party and it’s very hard to see how it doesn’t collapse under its own weight. maybe Nancy and Chuck can be the new ‘right wing’ party and the progressives can be the left and these republican psychos can form their own tiny angry little gadfly party? there’s definitely no place for Mike S in the current party.
Whatever his sins, it’s good that Steele isn’t just saying he can’t vote for Trump: He’s saying he has to vote for a Democrat.