Thread by @JJohnsonLaw

R.I.P., G.O.P. nytimes.com/2020/10/24/opi…

The Party of Lincoln had a good run. Then came Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has been eating at its core for decades, leaving it a hollowed-out shell devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions & ideals.

Today’s G.O.P. has allowed itself to be co-opted & radicalized by Trumpism. Its ideology has been reduced to a slurry of paranoia, white grievance and authoritarian populism. Its governing vision is reactionary, a cross beyond obstructionism and owning the libs.

Its policy agenda, as defined by the party platform, is whatever President Trump wants — which might not be so pathetic if Mr. Trump’s interests went beyond “Build a wall!”

“There is no philosophical underpinning for the Republican Party anymore,” strategist @reedgalen recently lamented. A co-founder of the Lincoln Project, Mr. Galen characterized the party as a self-serving, power-hungry gang.

With his dark gospel, the president has enthralled the Republican base, rendering other party leaders too afraid to stand up to him. But to stand with Mr. Trump requires a constant betrayal of one’s own integrity and values.

Witness the scramble to fill a Supreme Court seat just weeks before Election Day by many of the same Senate Republicans who denied President Barack Obama his high court pick in 2016, claiming it would be wrong to fill a vacancy eight months out from that election.

Mr. Trump demands that his interests be placed above those of the nation. His presidency has been an extended exercise in defining deviancy down — and dragging the rest of his party down with him.

Having long preached “character” and “family values,” Republicans have given a pass to Mr. Trump’s personal degeneracy. The affairs, the hush money, the multiple accusations of assault and harassment, the gross boasts of grabbing unsuspecting women — none of it matters.

For all their talk about revering the Constitution, Republicans have stood by, slack-jawed, in the face of the president’s assault on checks and balances. Mr. Trump has spurned the concept of congressional oversight of his office.

After losing a budget fight and shutting down the government in 2018-19, he declared a phony national emergency at the southern border so he could siphon money from the Pentagon for his border wall. He put a hold on nearly $400 million in Senate-approved aid to Ukraine.

Despite fetishizing “law & order,” Republicans shrugged as Trump maligned & politicized federal law enforcement, lending a hand. Impeachment offered an example. Parroting White House line that the process was illegitimate, the president’s enablers made clear they had his back.

Debasement goes beyond passive indulgence. Congressional bootlickers, channeling Trump’s rantings about Deep State, use power to target those who investigate him. Nunes & Ron Johnson conducted hearings aimed at smearing Trump’s political opponents & delegitimizing Russia inquiry.

As head of Homeland Security Committee,Johnson pushed investigation of Hunter Biden he bragged would expose the former vice president’s “unfitness for office.” Instead he wasted taxpayer money producing an 87-page rehash of unsubstantiated claims reeking of Russian disinformation

Undeterred, last Sunday Johnson was on Fox News, engaging with the host over baseless rumors the F.B.I. was investigating child pornography on a computer that allegedly had belonged to Hunter Biden. These vile claims are peddled online by right-wing conspiracymongers, including Q

Officials stood by or pitched in as Trump denigrated F.B.I., federal prosecutors, intelligence & courts. They failed to prioritize election security because the topic makes Trump insecure. They pushed limits of the law & decency to advance Trump’s draconian immigration agenda.

Most horrifically, GOP leaders stood by as Trump lied to the public about a pandemic that killed more than 220,000 Americans. They watch him politicize masks, testing, distribution of PPE & everything else. Some echo his incendiary talk, fueling violence in their own communities.

In campaign’s closing weeks, as cases & hospitalizations climb & health officials warn of rough winter, Trump is stepping up attacks on scientific advisers, deriding them as “idiots” & declaring Fauci a “disaster.” Whether out of fear or willful ignorance, leaders are complicit.

Cornyn, locked in tight re-election race, said he has disagreed with Trump on issues, including deficit, trade policy & his raiding the defense budget. Cornyn said he opted to not get into a public tiff with Trump “because, as I’ve observed, those usually don’t end too well.”

Profiles in courage these are not.

Many disillusioned Republicans acknowledge their team has been descending into white grievance, revanchism and know-nothing populism for decades. Trump just greased the slide. “He is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party has become in the last 50 or so years.”

The scars of Trump’s presidency will linger long after he leaves office. Some Republicans question whether there is anything left worth saving. Stuart Stevens’s prescription: “Burn it to the ground, and start over.”