In his Substack titled, “The Convention Spoke and Told Us: The GOP is Dead,” Kinzinger explained various examples of how the RNC demonstrated that Trump has succeeded in turning the GOP into a “cult of personality.”
From that Substack article:
It was called the Republican National Convention, but in fact, it had nothing to do with the GOP most of us once knew. Gone were the party’s serious policy debates and platform planks. In their place was a celebration of Donald Trump, who has succeeded in converting one of the country’s two major parties into a cult of personality. When it ended, the delegates sent a ticket into the presidential election with no true Republicans on it.
. . . Because it is now the Trump Party, the crowd in Milwaukee lapped up Navarro’s message of fear which, after all, is the gateway to rage. Few noticed that, contrary to tradition, past Republican leaders – former President Bush, past nominee Mitt Romney, and former Vice President Dan Quayle – were all absent.
. . . I won’t hide the fact that I grieve the old GOP and fear the cult of Trump. I am equally concerned, though, by Democrats who are shrinking from the fight, concluding that Trump’s election is inevitable. I would say that given a remnant of traditional Republicans remains, and independents must be turned off by a Trump who wants to be emperor. It’s time to gather our courage and energy. The fight against him is not lost.
I mean, they stole an election in 2000 and we just let that happen with no consequences. Nixon tried to cheat and was caught, and we let that happen with no consequences. They haven’t liked democracy for a while now.
I wouldn’t say no consequences for Nixon. They would have impeached him if he hadn’t decided to resign. And the president pardoned him to not set a bad precedent but again had he not resigned with tact, that may not have happened.
So, what you’re saying is, there definitely totally could have been consequences for realises absolutely. There weren’t any, but boy howdie there could have been.
Look, I get your point, but the fact that avoiding said consequences was so trivially easy kind of massively undermines it. Most people would have a harder time getting out of a traffic ticket.
He had to resign based on public pressure, I would call that a consequence. No one in politics today really feels that kind of pressure anymore.