Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Ex-Rethug Operative Steve Schmidt: 'The Party of Trump Must Be Obliterated. Annihilated. Destroyed'
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/steve-schmidt-party-of-trump-obliterated-w521978Ex-Republican Operative Steve Schmidt: 'The Party of Trump Must Be Obliterated. Annihilated. Destroyed'
A candid conversation with the former GOP power player
MAX WHITTAKER/Redux
By Andy Kroll
9 hours ago
WASHINGTON – Steve Schmidt has worked at the highest levels of Republican politics. He helped run George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign and oversaw the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He led Sen. John McCain's '08 presidential bid and helped introduce Sarah Palin to the world. The American Association of Political Consultants once named him its "GOP Campaign Manager of the Year."
But today, Schmidt is finished with the Republican Party. He renounced his membership last week in a series of withering tweets that quickly went viral. Under Trump, he wrote, the party had become "corrupt, indecent, and immoral." With the exception of a select few, the GOP was "filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party's greatest leaders." He pointed to the Trump administration's family separation policy and use of detention centers for young immigrant children – "internment camps for babies" – and the refusal of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to repudiate the president.
In the days since, Schmidt's former party brethren appear to have confirmed his prognosis. First, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tweeted an image of five heavily tattooed Hispanic-looking men – ostensibly gang members – with the message: "Nancy Pelosi introduces her campaign committee for the take back of the House." Huckabee's tweet was roundly criticized as bigoted and xenophobic. (He stiff-armed these accusations.) On Sunday, David Bossie, a veteran conservative activist who was Trump's deputy campaign manager in 2016, told a black panelist on Fox News that he was "out of his cotton-picking mind." (Bossie later apologized.) These weren't the dog whistles of yore; this was plain-as-day bigotry and racism.
Schmidt's decision to cut ties with Republicans didn't exactly come as a surprise. He has for years served as one of the GOP's staunchest critics from within. (You've probably seen him on MSNBC as the network's go-to talking head for diagnosing the ills of the modern Republican Party.) Still, his perspective is a unique one, the star consultant who swore off his party and sounded the alarm on his way out. I spoke with Schmidt on Monday afternoon.
Why did you finally decide to leave the Republican Party?
I think it's fair to say I've been estranged from the party on a number of issues going back to my advocacy and support for marriage equality in 2009 and then my opposition to the populism and the nationalism that we've seen. The reality that I've come to is that the party stands at an hour at which it is irredeemable, where it has died and bled out because of the cowardice and fecklessness of its leaders.
When Trump was elected, there were three parties in Washington: the Trump party, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Republican Party had every chance to put a check on his vile personal conduct, his administration's outlandish corruption, his fetishizing and affinity for autocrats around the world and his undermining of the western alliance.
How did it get to this point?
I think it's important to understand the history of the Republican Party. It was founded in 1854 because of the moral collapse of the Whig Party, specifically around the question of race and the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
The Republican Party remained the party of the North and the West culturally in this country until the Civil Rights Act. On the day that LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act, he says, "I feel like I've lost the South." Over time, beginning with Richard Nixon in '68, with the Southern Strategy and the appeal to white working-class Southerners, the Republican Party is uprooted from the North and the West. That is the party I was born into.
This cancer has always been there. This dormant cancer. But it has become fully embraced in this moment. We're seeing at this moment a president of the United States do five things. He is using mass rallies that are fueled by constant lying to incite fervor and devotion in his political base. The second thing we see him do is to affix blame for every problem in the world. Many of them are complex, not so different from the issues faced at the end of Agrarian age and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We see him attack minority populations with words like "invade" and "infest." The third thing he does is a create a shared sense of victimization caused by the scapegoated populations. This is the high act of Trumpism: From Trump to Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham, everyone is a victim. The fourth thing he does is he alleges conspiracy by nefarious and unseen hidden forces – the "deep state." And the fifth thing is the assertion that "I am the law, that I am above it." He just said immigrants don't get a hearing; they don't get a court representation.
more...
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/steve-schmidt-party-of-trump-obliterated-w521978
33 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
