The following article by Dan Balz was posted on the Washington Post website June 20, 2018:
High profile GOP strategist Steve Schmidt left the Republican Party on June 20 in protest to the Trump administration’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
For three decades, Steve Schmidt has played at the highest levels of Republican politics, as a top strategist in presidential campaigns and as an adviser to other GOP candidates. He has also been one of the most vociferous critics of President Trump. On Wednesday, he made that opposition even more emphatic, renouncing his party affiliation and urging Americans to vote for Democrats in the November elections.
“Trump’s election did not spell doom for the Republican Party,” Schmidt said by telephone Wednesday while traveling. “The reality is that our Founders always predicted that one day there would be a president like Trump, and that’s why they designed the system of government the way they designed it. What they never imagined is the utter abdication of a co-equal branch of government, which we’re seeing now. . . . The definition of conservatism now is the requirement of complete and utter obedience to the leader.” Continue reading “A GOP strategist abandons his party and calls for the election of Democrats”