Hundreds of prominent Republicans support Kamala Harris to keep Trump from returning to power

Donald Trump has created enemies within his own party. The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month was meant to show the party closing ranks around Trump. But this picture of unity was broken by the fact that important figures from the party were noticeably absent. Neither George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, nor Mike Pence participated in the event. The Democrats took advantage of their own convention to give voice to the Republicans who support Kamala Harris. They have been joined by lawyers who worked for the last Republican presidents and more than 200 former employees and officials of traditional Republican leaders, who believe Trump is a populist and a threat to democracy. Trump has also made an effort to win over renegade Democrats, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

While there have only been a few isolated defections in the Democratic Party, they are much more widespread in Trump’s party and reflect a break with the traditional conservatism of the Grand Old Party (GOP), as the Republican Party is also known. Since he descended the golden stairs of his Fifth Avenue tower to announce his candidacy in 2015, Trump has turned the party upside down. He won the primaries against figures such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, resorting to nicknames and personal insults. Although some wounds have healed — Rubio aspired to be a vice-presidential candidate — others remain open. Trump also leveled insults against previous Republican candidates such as John McCain and Mitt Romney. His presidency proved divisive not only for the country, but also for his party.

“The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult,” John Giles, mayor of Mesa — Arizona’s third-largest city — and a great admirer of the late John McCain, a senator from his state and Republican presidential candidate in 2008, said at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) last week. Journalist Ana Navarro compared Trump to 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, a former White House press secretary, told the DNC she became disillusioned after being a “true believer,” who spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Trump family at Mar-a-Lago, the then-president’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. “He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity 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 matters, and what you don’t say matters.”

“I never thought I’d be here,” said former lawmaker Adam Kinzinger, at the start of what was perhaps the most forceful speech against the Republican leader, who lost Kinzinger’s support after the assault on the Capitol. “Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big, He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim,” he told the DNC. “We must put country first. [...] Democracy knows no parties. It is a living, breathing ideal that defines us as a nation. It’s the bedrock that separates us from tyranny,” he concluded.

Kinzinger said he became a Republican as a child because of his admiration for Ronald Reagan. The former president — who is played by Dennis Quaid in an upcoming biopic — is revered by many Republicans, including dozens of lawyers who worked with him in the White House. These lawyers — who also served George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush — have now taken a stand against Trump.

“We endorse Kamala Harris and support her election as President because we believe that returning former president Trump to office would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country,” the lawyers wrote in a letter shared with the conservative network Fox News.

The same statement points out that Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence; many members of his administration and White House staff at the most senior levels, as well as former Republican candidates for president and vice president, have already refused to support his re-election. One of the signatories is former judge Michael Luttig, a prominent Reagan and Bush adviser, who was considered a possible candidate for the Supreme Court. Luttig said he will vote Democrat for the first time this year.

“Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after losing the election proved beyond any reasonable doubt his willingness to place his personal interests above the law and values of our constitutional democracy,” said the lawyers for the Reagan and Bush administrations. “We cannot go along with other former Republican officials who have condemned Trump with these devastating judgments but are still not willing to vote for Harris. We believe this election presents a binary choice, and Trump is utterly disqualified.”

Authoritarian drift

Before the 2020 elections, after a mandate that showed the damage that Trump was capable of doing to institutions with his authoritarian drift and populist drive, numerous Republicans mobilized and created the Lincoln Project, which campaigned to try to stop Trump getting reelected. This initiative is still active, and working to achieve the same result at the November election.

The Lincoln Project includes some of the more than 200 Republicans who worked for former presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and former senators Mitt Romney and John McCain have also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a harsh open letter to Trump that was first reported by USA Today.

“Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris,” the letter said. “That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable. At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership […] will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions. Abroad, democratic movements will be irrevocably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte J. D. Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”

Trump is trying to counter the attacks from fellow Republican by recruiting former Democrats. The two most prominent defectors have been offered spots on his transition team if he wins the election. The first is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who left the Democratic Party last year when he saw that he would not win the primaries against Joe Biden. He then ran for president as an independent, but due to his dwindling support, the politician — a vaccine skeptic known for supporting conspiracy theories — dropped out of the race last week and endorsed Trump. The Republican leader welcomed him with open arms, just months after calling him a “radical left lunatic.”

The second is Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii who tried — with no success — to win the 2020 presidential primaries. After dropping out of the race, she renounced her party and became a guest star on ultra-conservative forums, playing the role of convert. Her name was even floated as a possible vice presidential candidate. Trump has been preparing for the September 10 debate against Kamala Harris with Gabbard, as the former Democrat debated the Democratic candidate in 2019 and managed to unsettle her.

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