‘He’s a cult leader’: Trump primary opponent explains how the president keeps a stranglehold on the Republican Party

No one will ever mistake former Republican Joe Walsh for a centrist, let alone a liberal or a progressive: the former Illinois congressman was very active in the Tea Party movement during the Barack Obama years. But Walsh seems to have done some soul-searching in recent months; he’s still hard-right politically but now expresses regrets over some of the ugly things he said and did in the past — for example, promoting the racist birther conspiracy theory (which claimed that Obama was really born in Africa rather than the U.S.). And Walsh, in a February 6 op-ed for the Washington Post, warns against the cult-like tendencies of President Donald Trump’s unwavering devotees.

Many Trumpistas now detest Walsh because he is challenging Trump via a GOP presidential primary — that is, if they even know he is running for president. In his op-ed, Walsh acknowledges, “My chances are slim — don’t worry, I know. It’s been made even tougher by the party canceling primaries to shield the president from being challenged — and by Fox News and the rest of Trump’s lapdog conservative media denying me airtime.”

But Walsh goes on to explain why he’s seeking the 2020 Republican presidential nomination: a need for Americans on the right to stand up to Trumpism. And the more he has challenged Trump via his primary run, Walsh stresses, the more he sees how cult-like Trump’s sycophants are. For example, Walsh notes, he recently spoke at a GOP caucus in Iowa, where fellow Republicans wouldn’t listen to a word he had to say. Continue reading.