The anti-Trumpers are at it again only this time, theyre Republicans.
Kevin, a lifelong Republican voter and pastor from Arizona, says he voted for Trump in 2016 with high hopes for the future. He knew that Trump didnt have the same political experience as the other contenders, but he was optimistic he could grow into his new role.
Now he says: Ive seen how he has tried to divide our country and that is not something I want, nor what our country should have This man is an absolute danger to our country.
Kevins experience of voting for Trump and then quickly realizing hed made a mistake is one of many being used by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), which wants to boot Trump out of office later this year. The group is seeking testimony from former Trump voters through its website, which displays the best quotes so far with pride. (Id vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I vote for Donald Trump again, reads one.)
Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who co-founded RVAT, said they have received hundreds of testimonies in recent months.
The group is funded by millionaire neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, who was formerly chief of staff to the vice-president under George HW Bush, but uses testimony from distinctly non-political voices to make an impact.
One of the reasons they are so compelling is because you can tell how authentic they are, how deeply they feel this a lot of them want to get something off their chest, says Longwell. The testimonies are not scripted or paid for, but they are the result of a lot of workshopping.
Jeffrey Farmer, from Massachussetts, certainly fits the bill of a non-polished but frustrated voice: he is immunocompromised and angered by Trumps response to the pandemic. And he is certainly the voice of a media-trained, focus-group prepped politico just a person who formerly backed Trump.
I dont even know why Im doing this stupid thing, because this is not what I do. I dont do social media or anything. But I cant take this any more, he says.
Farmer voted for Trump in 2016 because of how much he disliked Hillary Clinton, but describes him as being Like a Tasmanian devil, who spends all day complaining on Twitter instead of doing his job.
This guy couldnt lead his way out of a wet frickin paper bag, says Farmer.
Longwell, herself a disgruntled Republican, says she initially started looking for answers after Trump won the presidency.
I have been alarmed by him from the beginning, she says and so, around 2017, she began to search for answers. I wanted to know how the party got taken over by Donald Trump, she says. She ran focus groups with soft Trump voters who voted for him 2016 but rated him as doing somewhat badly or very badly and tried to understand how to persuade them against him.
The key thing, she found, was for them to hear from people like themselves.
One thing we found is that the cultural aspect played a big role in [the 2016 election], she says. Youd get women whod say I voted for him and I cried, or, I voted for him and then I had to take a shower afterwards. But they were surrounded by people who talk about how all Democrats are socialists or whatever, she says.
As a lifelong supporters of the Republican party though, does she really want Biden to win? Longwell says that she absolutely, unequivocally does.
Donald Trump has a negative impact on the future of the Republican party, says Longwell. He has sort of hijacked the party and really poisoned the country, and has turned it into a nationalist populist party. Theres a section of Republicans who do not find that attractive, and Im one of them.
The best thing for the party long term is for him to get defeated soundly, and for the party to rethink its direction.
See more here:
- North Korea Wants to Convince the World It Can Nuke Hawaii. Donald Trump Is Happy to Oblige. - The Intercept - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Does Donald Trump Have Dementia? - The Root - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump's peculiar obsession with authoritarian leaders - Chicago Tribune - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- 'South Park' Creators Skirt Donald Trump Next Season Because Monkey Running Into Wall Can't Be Made Funnier - Deadline - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse - Forbes - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- This is the best news Donald Trump has had in a while - CNN - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- AFT President: Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump Are Dismantling Public Education - TIME - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- The Donald Trump Zone of Uncertainty shows up in the health-care debate - Washington Post - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump Predicts Mideast Peace Is 'Not As Difficult As People Have Thought' - Huffington Post - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Make America Great Again! | Donald J Trump for President - May 3rd, 2017 [May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump Rage Tweets Against Media For Taking Seriously His Tweets - Deadline - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Roger Stone: I Hooked Up Nigel Farage With Donald Trump - Mother Jones - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Accused leaker Reality Winner called Trump an 'orange fascist' on Twitter - CNN International - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Approval Rating Is Better Than Bill Clinton's at This Point in His First Term - Newsweek - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- London, Qatar, Donald Trump: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Escalates Qatar Crisis - HuffPost - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business - Forbes - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- No, Donald Trump doesn't have 110 million people following him on social media - Washington Post - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Donald Trump is the best 2020 recruiter Democrats could hope for - CNN - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- It's Time to Demand Donald Trump's Resignation - RollingStone.com - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- A brief history of Donald Trump's feud with Sadiq Khan, London's first Muslim mayor - Washington Post - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Donald Trump has a lot of feelings about fame - CNN - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is Never to Blame - New York Times - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to distract you from the Comey hearing - CNN - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- President Trump's Approval Rating Hit Another New Low - TIME - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- The Potemkin Policies of Donald Trump - The Atlantic - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Jeff Sessions committed the one sin Donald Trump can't forgive - CNN - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- James Comey just went nuclear on Donald Trump - CNN International - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton and the true cause of Donald Trump's legitimacy crisis his own actions - Salon - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Proposes Covering Mexican Border Wall With Solar Panels - Futurism - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Tell Your Senators: Don't Let Donald Trump Take Our Cuba Policy Backwards - The Nation. - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Wrote a Cookbook - New York Times - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump is destroying America's standing in the world and may end up destroying the world - Salon - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump hasn't tweeted in a very long time - CNN - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Experts: Trump's Comey Firing 'Possibly Lawful, But Awful' - NBCNews.com - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Karl Rove, Erick Erickson slam Donald Trump - Salon - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- The Real Scandal Is Still Russia - Slate Magazine - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- 5 times UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn slammed Donald Trump - Politico - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- 9 questions Donald Trump needs to answer at today's news conference - CNN - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- So is Donald Trump secretly recording conversations or not? - CNN - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Watch Donald Trump Throw Binders Full of Highway Environmental Reviews on the Floor - Slate Magazine (blog) - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- This week in Donald Trump's conflicts of interest: Kushner may have problems, but Trump's hotel raises lots of questions - Salon - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Donald Trump looks like Mussolini but can be overcome - Salon - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- This One Tweet May Lead to Donald Trump's Impeachment - National Review - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- Fact Check: Donald Trump's Claims About Infrastructure - New York Times - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- The Worst of Donald Trump's Toxic Agenda Is Lying in Wait A Major US Crisis Will Unleash It - The Intercept - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- Boy Scout James Comey is no match for Donald Trump - Washington Post - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]
- Justice Department: Trump Can Take Payments From Foreign Governments - TIME - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Marc Kasowitz, Donald Trump's lawyer, has clients with Kremlin ties - The Denver Post - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Yes, Donald Trump is an incompetent buffoon but he's still a major threat to democracy - Salon - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Democrats bet on Trump in Virginia governor's race - Politico - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Will Donald Trump's anti-Muslim words on travel ban hurt his case? - USA TODAY - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's State Visit To The UK Now In Doubt - HuffPost - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Jr.: There's 'no ambiguity' in my father's orders - CNN - June 11th, 2017 [June 11th, 2017]
- Ivanka condemns Donald Trump's 'vicious critics' - BBC News - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Surrogate Lays Out POTUS Case For Sacking Special Counsel Robert Mueller - Deadline - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Russia, Theresa May, Donald Trump: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump in Wonderland: Literally everything our president says and does reflects the opposite of reality - Salon - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is Turning Young Voters Off the GOPand Maybe Forever - Daily Beast - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Trump's Own Tweets Help Kill His Government's Travel Ban, Again - Fortune - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Approval Rating Sinks Further As Disapproval Hits Record High - Newsweek - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- When Jeff Sessions met Donald Trump: The origins of an alliance now strained - Washington Post - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump just held the weirdest Cabinet meeting ever - CNN - June 13th, 2017 [June 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump to mayor of island sinking due to climate change: Don't worry about it! - Salon - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Trump son tweet connects shooting to NYC 'Julius Caesar' play - CNN - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump Jr. rush to blame Kathy Griffin and the left for baseball shooting - Salon - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Biggest Mistake Might Have Been Getting Elected - Vanity Fair - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Congress Shooter Is Dead - TMZ.com - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Trump faces first big domestic moment - Politico - June 14th, 2017 [June 14th, 2017]
- Tiny mark on Melania Trump's birthday card to Donald Trump sparks wild theories - AOL - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is Now Facing Three Emoluments Lawsuits - Slate Magazine - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Play Video - TIME - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Blocked Me on Twitter for Telling Him He's Not as Cool as Witches - Newsweek - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Senate passes Russia sanctions bill, pushing back against Trump - CNN - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Australian leader is on the hot seat for making fun of Donald Trump - Washington Post - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Flattery is Donald Trump's cocaine he's addicted to it - USA TODAY - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Moving to Scuttle Obama Legacy, Donald Trump to Crack Down on Cuba - New York Times - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Donald Trump doesn't get the special counsel investigation. And he's never going to. - CNN - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Memo to Donald Trump: The election ended 219 days ago. You won. - CNN - June 16th, 2017 [June 16th, 2017]
- Who in the White House Will Turn Against Donald Trump? - The New Yorker - June 17th, 2017 [June 17th, 2017]