Former Republicans in Talks to Form Anti-Trump Third Party

With almost half of Congressional Republicans having refused to vote for the certification of Joe Biden's victory and now with Senate Republicans likely set to refuse to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial even after the damning presentation by the House impeachment managers, the Republican Party needs to die.  Or should I say the Trump Party needs to die.  This feeling has motivated dozens of former Republican office holders and officials to enter into talks to form a new third party that would take up conservative policies and positions once held by the GOP before it became a white supremacist sectarian party.  Launching a new national political party is a daunting challenge, but the effort could lead to defeats for Trump Republicans and accelerate the demise of the GOP as it panders to a shrinking uneducated, racist and religiously extreme white population and sees suppression of non-white votes as its only route to power given the exodus on educated suburban whites from the party.  I wish them luck in their much needed endeavor.  Reuters has highlights:

Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.

The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.

More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of “principled conservatism,” including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.

Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.

Among the call participants were John Mitnick, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; former Republican congressman Charlie Dent; Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff in the Homeland Security Department under Trump; and Miles Taylor, another former Trump homeland security official.

The talks highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trump’s false claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president, but others seek a new direction for the party.

Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of Biden’s election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.

Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this week’s Senate impeachment trial.

“Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”

McMullin said just over 40% of those on last week’s Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a “faction” that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.

Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.

Members are aware that the U.S. political landscape is littered with the remains of previous failed attempts at national third parties.

“But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” one participant said.