Former GOP Leaders Tell Trump And His Cult That They’re Destroying Democracy

A former GOP congressman joined an ex-RNC chairman on Monday in saying that Donald Trump and his cult-like defenders are destroying democracy in real-time.

The two men – former Rep. Mickey Edwards and former RNC chairman Michael Steele – said that Republicans in Congress are standing idly by as Trump erodes “the whole idea of a democratic society.”

“We have to rebuild the whole idea of a democratic society that we’ve had because he’s eroding all the values, all the norms,” former Rep. Edwards said. “It’s a cult.”

Steele chimed in, “We will have to do some serious rebuilding – not just the Republican party, which at this point is somewhat irrelevant in the overall scheme of democracy.”

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FORMER REP. EDWARDS: That’s the scariest part, Chris. And that is Trump, whether he stays or goes, is leaving us where we have to rebuild civil society. We have to rebuild the whole idea of a democratic society that we’ve had because he’s eroding all the values, all the norms. It’s a cult, as you said, that everybody out there in the states thinks, well, we have to go along with what he wants. He’ll tell us who he wants to be in the Senate.

HAYES: Exactly. He’s going to tell the governor of Georgia who he should appoint. And, Michael, it is essentially ipso facto on its face illegitimate for anyone to contest or disagree with the president on that. That there’s no space for anyone to have just an independent view on any matter.

STEELE: No. There is only one view and that’s Trump’s view. To Mickey’s point, that’s what makes this all so very dangerous. Because, as Mickey noted, we will have to do some serious rebuilding. Not just the Republican party, which at this point is somewhat irrelevant in the overall scheme of democracy because we’ve taken ourselves so far outside of – not even mainstream, we’re not even near a stream. We’re just kind of standing in the middle of nowhere with Donald Trump screaming at us. But that’s the problem for the rest of us as we try to put back in place those institutions that have safeguarded not just our domestic security but our foreign security as well. And it makes it much harder to do when you second guess and doubt everything that you hear, see, and read.

There is no saving the Republican Party

The Republican Party’s response to Donald Trump’s Ukraine crimes at the center of the ongoing impeachment probe has confirmed once and for all that the GOP is dead and buried.

To most Americans, this has been clear since well before the president was elected. After all, Republican leaders stood by Trump time and again during the campaign, even when he attacked John McCain’s military service in Vietnam or was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault.

Lately, GOP members of Congress – Sens. Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy, in particular – have taken their shamelessness to a whole new level by refusing to read the damning evidence against this corrupt president while simultaneously churning out Russian talking points.

Donald Trump must be defeated in 2020, but the Republican members of Congress who stood by as he trampled American democracy must also face harsh political consequences.

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Sean Colarossi

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.