Dozens of former Republican officials from the George W. Bush administration have abandoned the GOP, saying that the Republican Party has become a “Trump cult” that kowtows to the former president, Reuters reports.
The former high-level Cabinet officials are reportedly disgusted with current Republicans who are defending Donald Trump and his debunked claims of election fraud and his continued calls for violence that led to the January 6th domestic terrorist attack at the Capitol.
“The Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists. I’d call it the cult of Trump,” said Jimmy Gurulé, who was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Bush administration.
The former officials are not necessarily migrating to the Democratic Party, but they are disavowing the efforts from current GOP leaders at national and state levels who are working to undermine the public confidence in elections and bypass legal norm to prop up Trump.
“If it continues to be the party of Trump, many of us are not going back,” Rosario Marin, a former Treasurer of the U.S. under Bush, told Reuters. “Unless the Senate convicts him, and rids themselves of the Trump cancer, many of us will not be going back to vote for Republican leaders.”
Many in the group are also dismayed that GOP leaders support outlandish QAnon conspiracy theories, such as an organized pedolphilia ring at the highest levels of government and a “deep state” that is undermining American democracy.
“We have QAnon members of Congress. It’s appalling,” Kristopher Purcell, who worked in Bush White House’s communications office said.