Former Virginia Republicans Seek to End Trumpism

I have often said that one cannot support Donald Trump and at the same time be a decent, moral person.  The two are simply mutually exclusive.  It seems several former GOP members of Congress have reached the same conclusion and now seek to either (i) reform the GOP away from Trumpism and a cult of the personality akin to what China witnessed under Mao Zedong, a/k/a Chairman Mao, or (ii) possible found a new political party.  The latter approach would hopefully siphon enough votes from the GOP candidates to make Republican victories fewer and allow the anti-Trump moderates to wield enough power to force reform if the party was serious about winning elections as opposed to worship a foul, morally bankrupt sociopath.  Interestingly, some no longer identify themselves as Republicans give what the party brand has come to connotate.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Scott Rigell had no hard feelings when he resigned from the Virginia Beach GOP in 2016 after becoming the first Republican member of Congress to endorse Libertarian Gary Johnson over Donald Trump. He said he was still a “proud member” of the Republican Party.

Over the next four years, however, that pride dwindled. And after the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, Rigell became a political independent. He said he couldn’t stomach seeing his former colleagues “hold on to the proven falsehood that the election was stolen.”

“I am still to this day stunned that the Republican Party elevated, embraced — and continues to, to this day — a man I think is a complete moral wasteland, not only personally but in the public square,” he said.

Rigell is one of three former Republican members of Congress from Virginia to join a national open call this month to reform the GOP and steer it away from Trumpian politics after the ouster of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as the House GOP conference chair. The others are former representatives Barbara Comstock and Denver Riggleman.

The group — dubbed “A Call for American Renewal” — also includes Marylanders Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor, and Wayne Gilchrest and Connie Morella, both former members of Congress (Gilchrest announced in 2019 that he had become a Democrat). Its organizers stopped short of calling for a new party but seemed to flirt with the possibility.

While in Congress, Comstock, Rigell and Riggleman were reliable conservative votes on a wide range of issues including border security and deregulation, making their evolution into GOP critics a stark example of the schism Trump has created within the traditional political right.

Riggleman, who also no longer calls himself a Republican, was a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.

But they have drawn the line at echoing Trump’s false claims about a rigged 2020 election. In contrast, all four of Virginia’s current Republican members of Congress objected to President Biden’s electoral victory during the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

“Some want to have a new party, but I’m in the category of wanting to have a much healthier two-party system and center-right Republican Party that embraces the rule of law,” said Comstock, . . . . “Pushing back against January 6 was a dividing line. You cannot support the big lie and be a constitutional conservative.”

Trump’s falsehoods and divisive style drove centrist voters away from the GOP, nationally and in Virginia, political analysts say, ultimately speeding the commonwealth’s shift from swing-state purple to Democratic blue.

Virginia Republicans who oppose or criticize Trump are being shunned or sidelined within the party, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, while those who embrace him struggle to win statewide elections or suburban swing districts.

“At the moment, these three former members of Congress are more like voices crying in a Republican wilderness,” Farnsworth said. “Will the party come around to their way of thinking? I think a lot depends on the success or failure of Republican candidates who are all in in their support of former president Trump. If Republicans get swept again in statewide elections, the arguments offered by Riggleman and Comstock and Rigell may make more sense to some of the die-hard activists.”

Comstock views detaching Republican candidates from Trump as key to winning swing states and taking back the House majority — a view echoed by many critics of the former president but forcefully rejected by the GOP caucus when it replaced Cheney with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). That rejection, Comstock said, is what made signing onto the call for GOP reform feel so urgent.

“We’ve never had this cult of personality where you had to pick a person over issues. It’s just juvenile,” she said. “As Liz said, if you don’t stand up to the liar, it’s going to continue. ... [Trump] has a burn-it-down mentality; if he can’t win, he doesn’t care if Republicans win or not.