A Republican consultant has offered a damning critique of the current state of the GOP, arguing in a withering op-ed that it now “offers nothing.”
Traditional conservative values have been “corrupted and abandoned,” Alfredo Rodriguez III wrote in a column published on North Carolina newspaper The Herald-Sun’s website on Wednesday.
Instead, previous conservative standards have been replaced with “anger about everything, immovable thinking and rationale, conspiratorial theories and extreme skepticism, hatred of the opposition, and a lukewarm defense of democracy,” said the founder of Republican political consultants Dyce Communications.
The GOP “possesses no vision, optimism or ideas,” he added.
Trump had “shed light” on the issues facing Americans when he announced his first run in 2015 but then “corrupted conservatism for his own benefit,” Rodriguez lamented, before urging the abandonment of the 2024 Republican front-runner before the election.
The former president is the current runaway favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination, leading the polls at 58%, even as he continues to face myriad legal woes and upcoming criminal trials.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running in second place at 12%, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is running third on 7.5%, according to polling averages.