In recent years, the Republican Party has gleefully embraced the most vile and repugnant elements of society, transforming itself into a seething cauldron of white supremacy, transphobic hysteria, and unhinged conspiracy theories.
From the tiki-torch-wielding neo-Nazis of Charlottesville to the hateful architects of anti-trans legislation, the GOP has made it abundantly clear that intolerance and discrimination are not just tolerated, but actively celebrated. And at the helm of this ship of fools is none other than the orange-tinted tyrant himself, Donald Trump, who has single-handedly dragged the Party into a festering quagmire of lies and authoritarian delusions.
The reawakened minds are realizing that “making America great again” doesn’t actually mean turning it into a real-life version of of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale. Voters are indeed growing increasingly weary of the ongoing attempts to transform the nation into a dystopian authoritarian hellscape. Recent footage from Republican presidential candidate rallies shows dwindling crowds and a palpable disillusionment as Trump waves at illusionary crowds.
Voters are not committing some unforgivable sin by turning their backs on a party they once believed in. Loyalty to a political party should never come at the expense of one’s principles or the well-being of the nation. As Alyssa Farah Griffin, the straight-shooting co-host of ABC’s The View, perfectly laid out in a recent tweet, “It’s ok to not vote for a political Party you’ve been loyal to if that Party has fundamentally changed.”
It’s a sentiment that carries extra weight coming from someone like Griffin, who once served as a loyal foot soldier in the Trump administration, dutifully regurgitating talking points about imaginary voter fraud and “rigged elections” in the bitter aftermath of Trump’s humiliating defeat. Griffin has since renounced her past transgressions, acknowledging the error of her ways, and attributing her political evolution to a great shift in perspective born of experience and introspection. She has become an outspoken critic of the former president, fearlessly sounding the alarm about the reeking stench of fascism that permeates every corner of the Trump cult.
According to Griffin, “Reaganism is dead,” and the Republican Party is now fully in the thrall of Trumpism. In a recent interview, she remarked, “This is a very different party. You had the Teamsters on stage. You had people talking about Ukraine shouldn’t be supported. It’s a really odd moment in our politics. As a Republican, I don’t even know where I fit in anymore.”
Perhaps that’s why Griffin is now choosing to endorse certain aspects of Kamala Harris’s campaign for the 2024 presidential election. Recently, she gushed about Harris’s “Obama-level energy,” and hinted that she could be a force to be reckoned with. If even Griffin can see the writing on the wall, scrawled in the blood of our democracy, then perhaps there’s hope for others to follow suit.