When ex-GOP official Katon Dawson compared Donald Trump to Barack Obama on Wednesday, MSNBC’s Ari Melber and former Hillary Clinton staffer Jess McIntosh were quick to shut him down with the truth.
Instead of acknowledging the reality Republican voters and lawmakers have sold their souls to blindly follow Trump, Dawson acted like it was no big deal.
“I’m going to compare it to Barack Obama,” he said. “They got a solid core base that politicians could kill to have.”
Melber offered up Trump’s recent North Korea movie trailer as further proof that this president is nothing like Barack Obama – or any other U.S. leader.
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Video:
Former Clinton staffer explains why the GOP’s blind loyalty to Trump is frightening. #ctl #p2 #Trump #Republican pic.twitter.com/yGyRbVOM7n
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) June 13, 2018
Responding to the disturbing Trump propaganda video, Katon said:
I saw the hand of peace. I saw it. It was waving too, waving at the electorate, an electorate that likes Donald Trump. They are solid. They’re with him. And the example of what I think the Democratic Party is missing that we saw as Republicans. We took eight years of Barack Obama – and this is what Republicans should fear. Eight years of Barack Obama and 1436 legislative seats. Couple of five or six governors. Redraw the lines–
Jess McIntosh quickly shut him down:
Barack Obama never got Democrats to abandon their progressive principles en mass. Donald Trump has gotten the Republicans in the House and Senate to completely throw away whatever their party stood for before he got there or supposedly stood for before he got there. He literally alienated our allies and cuddled up to a dictator last week and he has Republicans everywhere saying that that’s a good thing and they always thought it was. That’s some 1984 stuff right there.
The GOP has become a cult in the Trump era
Since Donald Trump took office, the Republican Party has blindly followed his every move, supporting him as he shreds U.S. credibility abroad and trashes American institutions at home in order to protect himself from his growing legal trouble.
This never happened under Barack Obama. Democrats never abandoned their party’s principles or American values in order to appease a president with whom they happened to share a political affiliation.
As Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker said yesterday, “It’s becoming a cultish thing, isn’t it? It’s not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president that happens to be of, purportedly, of the same party.”
He’s right. It’s not a good place for a major political party to be. But sadly, it’s exactly where the Republican Party is in the era of Donald Trump. The country has never seen anything quite like it.
If Republicans want their party – and, more importantly, the country – to survive, it’s time for them to stop protecting a dangerous president just because he has the same letter next to his name.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
