[PJ] Reuters is reporting that dozens of Republican officials from the Bush administration are leaving the Republican Party, letting their registrations lapse or registering as independents. According to the interviews, they blame their abandonment on the Capitol riot and on current congressional leaders not abandoning President Trump’s claims of voter fraud. It appears unlikely that, with 45 Republicans voting to declare the recent impeachment unconstitutional, the Senate will be able to convict Trump.
One quote from the Reuters article gives the impression that something more going on.
"The Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists. I’d call it the cult of Trump," said Jimmy Gurulé, who was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Bush administration.
Indeed, the Republican Party today, and many of the 74 million people who voted for President Trump, do not look like the party or the voters that elected George W. Bush. During the 2016 primary, Trump played to issues the Republican establishment had been weak on, and he won. He entered the presidency and made good on his promises.
If the GOP establishment had been listening after the birth of the TEA Party, they would have seen this coming. The base was frustrated, and the brilliant coalition William F. Buckley had put together was starting to fray. We were tired of our leaders getting beaten up in the media and never standing up for themselves and their ideas. Tired of capitulation and furious about Obamacare, people started showing up at town halls held by politicians. A journalist covering an event with Senator Arlen Specter in 2009, where a voter told him Democrats had awakened a sleeping giant, summed the mood up perfectly: |
