For decades, journalist Peter Wehner, now 63, was a staunch Republican, serving as a speechwriter for three GOP presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. But that was before Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Since 2016, Wehner has made no secret of his belief that Trump and the MAGA movement have been terrible for the GOP and conservatism. And in a biting op-ed published by the New York Times on July 29, Wehner laments that Trump and the GOP have only become more unhinged since 2016.
"With so much attention focused on the changes at the top of the Democratic ticket," Wehner argues, "we are not paying enough attention to the lack of change on the top of the Republican ticket. This month, Donald Trump won his party's nomination for the third straight time. Whatever else we might say about him, he is a transformative figure."
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Wehner adds, "This further confirmed, for me at least, the wisdom of my decision eight years ago to break with the Republican Party. In January 2016, I warned what were then my fellow Republicans that if they nominated Mr. Trump, he would constitute a grave threat to the nation."
The Never Trump conservative notes that "few figures in American history" have "overhauled a political party as quickly and as fundamentally as Mr. Trump has" — and not for the better.
The Trumpified GOP, Wehner laments, has "jettisoned" the ideas Republicans once "championed" — from "free trade" to "fiscal discipline" to "welcoming legal immigrants and refugees."
"Mr. Trump tapped into the growing resentment of millions of voters," Wehner observes. "He was seen by them as their tribune. Unfortunately, he exploited their fears and did almost nothing to solve their problems. But that doesn't seem to matter to them. It's all about the posturing."
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Wehner adds, "The Republican Party, rather than embracing the best aspects of populism, has taken on its vices: anti-intellectualism, anti-institutionalism and anti-elitism…. But the most worrisome feature that has defined the Republican Party during the Trump era is a relentless assault on reality, fused with lawlessness and the embrace of illiberalism."
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Peter Wehner's full op-ed for the New York Times is available at this link (subscription required).
