Hundreds of prominent Republicans are backing Kamala Harris to prevent Trump from returning to power

Donald Trump has created antibodies in his own party. The Milwaukee convention showed last month obvious levels closure which concealed the fact that relevant Republican Party figures had been left out of the unit. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Mike Pence participated. The Democrats took advantage of their own convention to give a voice to some Republicans who support Kamala Harris. They are not alone. They are joined by lawyers who worked for the last Republican presidents and more than 200 former staff and officials of traditional Republican leaders, who see in Trump a republican who threatens democracy. As the support of the enemy provides additional legitimacy, Trump has also made efforts to recall Democrats, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

While the defects are in the case of the Democrats, in the creation of Trump they are much more extensive and show a break with the traditional conservatism of the Grand Old Party (GOP), as the Republican Party is also known. . Since descending the golden steps of his Fifth Avenue tower to announce his candidacy in 2015, Trump has turned the party upside down. He won the primaries against such figures as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, using nicknames and personal insults. While some wounds have healed — Rubio was aiming to be the vice presidential candidate — others remain open. The conflict extended to former Republican candidates such as John McCain and Mitt Romney. His presidency had been alienated not only to the country, but also within his party.

“The Grand Old Party has been taken over by extremists and has become a cult,” said John Giles, the mayor of Mesa (Arizona’s third largest city), who -huge following, at last week’s Democratic convention. The late John McCain, a senator from his state and 2008 Republican presidential candidate. Correspondent Ana Navarro compared Trump along with Latin American dictators Daniel Ortega, Fidel and Raúl Castro and Nicolás Maduro, for attacking the free press and refusing to admit defeat at the polls.

Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary, She said she became disillusioned after becoming a “true believer” who shared Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Trump family at Mar-a-Lago, the then-presidential mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. “He has no compassion, no morality, no loyalty to the truth. He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie, say it enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter: what you say is important, and what you don’t say is also important,” he said.

“I never thought I’d be here,” former Congressman Adam Kinzinger said at the start of what may have been the strongest intervention against the Republican leader, with whom he broke up after the attack on the Capitol. “Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He is a faithless man who pretends to be right. He’s a victim who can’t stop playing the victim,” he said. “We must put our country first. […] Democracy knows no parties. He is a true living icon that defines us as a nation. This is the cornerstone that separates us from tyranny,” he concluded.

Kinzinger said he became a Republican as a child because he admired Ronald Reagan. To the command of that president, whom the Republicans respect and about which it is published this week film by Dennis Quaid, Some of the attorneys and lawyers who have worked in the White House with Reagan, George HW Bush and George W. Bush and who deny Trump will go back. “We support Kamala Harris and support her election as president because we believe former President Trump’s return to office would threaten American democracy and undermine governance the law in our country,” wrote the dozen signatories. letter published by the conservative network Fox News.

The same statement goes on to recall that Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, and several members of his administration and White House staff at the highest levels, as well as the former Republican candidates for president and vice president, have already refused to support him. re-election. Among the signatories is former judge Michael Luttig, a prominent adviser to Reagan and Bush who has often been suggested as a candidate for Supreme Court justice, and has been adamant that he will vote Democratic for his first time.

“Trump’s attempt to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after losing the election demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that he was willing to put his personal interests above the law and the values ​​of our constitutional democracy,” said administration lawyers from Reagan and the press. “We cannot agree with other former Republican officials who have criticized Trump with these devastating judgments, but are still unwilling to vote for Harris.” this election presents a binary choice, and Trump is completely disqualified,” they say.

Authoritarian drift and populist drive

Before the 2020 elections, after a mandate that showed the damage that Trump was able to do to institutions with his authoritarian movement and populist campaign, several Republicans moved and They created the so-called Lincoln Project, which will attempt to stop Trumpism by preventing the then president from being re-elected. That campaign is still active for this campaign.

Some members of the Lincoln Project are among more than 200 Republicans who worked for Presidents George HW Bush and George W. Bush or Senators Mitt Romney and John McCain and who have also supported the Vice President sit Kamala Harris in a very harsh open letter to Trump which was first published The United States today.

“Of course, we have many honest and ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris,” they write. “It is to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable. At the house, four more years of Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency… will hurt real everyday people and undermine our sanctuaries. Abroad, democratic movements will be at risk like Trump and his acolyte JD Vance They bow down to dictators like Vladimir Putin and turn their backs on our friends. We cannot allow it,” they write.

Trump tries to counter the Republican wave by hiring former Democrats. He has offered the two most prominent to be on his transition team if he wins the elections. One of them is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who He left the Democratic Party last year when he saw that it was going to fail. in the primaries against Joe Biden and ran for the presidency as an independent, but with very little support that was declining. The anti-vaccine politician and hoax propagator threw in the towel last week to support Trump and attack the previous party. The Republican leader welcomed him with open arms months after he became a “radical leftist lunatic.”

The other signing, which had been in the works for a long time, was attended this Monday: Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congressman from Hawaii who tried – without success – to run in the head primaries -sitting 2020, then gave up her party and became. a star with which it came to sound uncontrolled. Trump has been preparing with her for the September 10 debate against Kamala Harris, since he faced the Democratic candidate in 2019 and managed to throw her off.

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