Ok….
I KNOW I’m gonna get the 85% to 90% of Republicans say they WILL vote for their party leader…
But?
Here are some the 10% to 15% that are NOT gonna vote for the big guy…
Senator Mitt Romney of Utah: Mr. Romney has long been critical of Mr. Trump, and was the only Republican senator to vote to convict him during his impeachment trial. Mr. Romney is still mulling over whom he will vote for in November — he opted for his wife, Ann, four years ago — but he is said to be sure it won’t be the president.
John Bolton, the former national security adviser: As he rolled out his recently published book, “The Room Where It Happened,” Mr. Bolton said in multiple interviews that he would not vote for Mr. Trump in November. He added that he would write in the name of a conservative Republican, but that he was not sure which one.
Jeff Flake, the former senator from Arizona: Mr. Flake said in an interview with The Washington Post: “This won’t be the first time I’ve voted for a Democrat — though not for president.” He added: “Last time I voted for a third-party candidate. But I will not vote for Donald Trump.”
William H. McRaven, a retired four-star Navy admiral: Several Republican admirals and generals have publicly announced they will not support the president. In an interview with The New York Times, Admiral McRaven, who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said, “This fall, it’s time for new leadership in this country — Republican, Democrat or independent.”
He added, “President Trump has shown he doesn’t have the qualities necessary to be a good commander in chief.”
John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio: After competing against Mr. Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, Mr. Kasich has never really thrown his support behind the president. But this week, he will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention and making the case for Mr. Biden.
“I’ve known Joe,” Mr. Kasich said on CNN recently. “I’ve known him for 30 years. I know the kind of guy he is.”
Colin Powell, the former secretary of state: Mr. Powell announced in June that he would vote for Mr. Biden. He said that Mr. Trump “lies about things” and that Republicans in Congress would not hold him accountable. Mr. Powell added that he was close to Mr. Biden politically and socially and had worked with him for more than 35 years.
Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security: Mr. Taylor endorsed Mr. Biden, saying that the president was “actively doing damage to our security” and that what he had witnessed Mr. Trump do as chief executive “was terrifying.” Mr. Taylor is the most senior former member of the administration to openly endorse Mr. Biden.
Christine Whitman, a former governor of New Jersey: Ms. Whitman is one of the few Republicans speaking at the Democratic National Convention. In October, Ms. Whitman told the television host Larry King that she would vote for Mr. Biden if he were the nominee, calling him the Democrats’ “best chance at winning in 2020.”
Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Quibi: A former senior official for both of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns and a former Republican candidate for governor of California, Ms. Whitman (no relation to Christine Whitman) is also slated to speak at the Democratic Convention. She supported Hillary Clinton in 2016….
There’s More....
Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) crossed party lines and endorsed Joe Biden for president….
Politicalwire…
While I, James and Jack would all like to see more of the old, moderate, tolerant Main Street GOP of years past (and promoted by Reince Priebus after Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012), I very much fear that Jack’s correct, and that the Grand Old Party has become the Party of Trump, aligned not with traditional conservative parties abroad, but with Steve Bannon’s favourite allies on the Far Right.
See this piece in Wednesday’s NY Times:
Opinion
What if Trumpism Is the G.O.P.’s Natural State?
Beating Trump would be just the beginning. Democrats would still be confronted with a radical Republican Party.
By Adam Jentleson
Mr. Jentleson was a deputy chief of staff for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.
Aug. 18, 2020
Buckle up, Democrats, because the time between now and Election Day will be a white-knuckled, cannonball run of doom-scrolling. Joe Biden holds a lead in the polls, giving Democrats hope that President Trump will be soundly defeated in November.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: Beating President Trump is just the beginning. If Mr. Biden wins and if Mr. Trump leaves office peacefully — two big ifs — Democrats will be confronted with a more intractable problem: The Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump, and it is not likely to change.
If Mr. Biden wins, there will be a temptation to embrace a big lie: Mr. Trump was the problem, and with him gone, the Republican Party can return to normal. But today’s Republican Party won’t moderate itself, because Trumpism is its natural state. Democrats should avoid the temptation to expect Republican cooperation in governing this country.
Mr. Trump won the 2016 nomination because the party’s voters embraced him enthusiastically. At the time, the strength of that embrace was obscured by the high-profile ambivalence of Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, then the speaker of the House.
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But Republican voters’ feelings about Mr. Trump were never particularly complicated. Within a month of entering the primary fight, Mr. Trump took a polling lead and, beside a brief surge by Ben Carson, never lost it.
In 2016, Mr. Trump didn’t change the Republican Party; he met it where it was. The party had been ready for him for years: In 2012, the congressional scholars Thomas Mann of the center-left Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote, “The G.O.P. has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.”
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More recent studies, including by Pippa Norris of Harvard, have confirmed this assessment. In a brief summary of her research — which compared the Republican Party with major parties in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development societies — she found the G.O.P. “near far-right European parties” that flirt with authoritarianism, like the Polish Law and Justice of Poland or the Turkish Justice and Development parties.
This is not a party poised to pivot toward moderation — even in the face of an electoral landslide loss. The inevitable calls for reform (like the party’s abandoned “autopsy” report after the 2012 election) will yield to the inescapable gravitational pull of the party’s own voters and the larger forces dominating our politics.
Instead of moderates, Republicans may be more likely to turn to reactionary politicians like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. A first-term senator with few substantive legislative accomplishments, Mr. Cotton rocketed to fame through his provocative actions against Democrats….
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opinion/trump-republican-party.html
This is exactly correct. Trumpism is the GOP’s natural state.
Yes the idea that Trump and his minions are just going to fade away if they lose this election is laughable.
Already several gangster pretenders, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio ,are lining up to seize rather mantle.
Which is part of I think Kasich saw the writing on the wall and endorsed Biden instead of trying to preserve some sort of option as a GOP Presidential candidate in 2024.
All these Republicans supporting Biden ought to start working on establishing a new political party for people like themselves.
Presently ,they are never going to be comfortable in either of the two existing parties.
Tough work?Yes. Odds of success?Small.
However,really, what choice do they have?
They are now permanent pariahs in the Trump Republican Party .We are told here that there are millions of peopke like them out there.Well, let’s see.