The man The New Republic described as “Dan Quayle‘s brain” when he served as the Vice President’s White House Chief of Staff, Bill Kristol has seen more iterations of America’s political parties than most insiders and operatives — and the latest version of the GOP has finally forced him to describe himself as an “ex-Republican.”
Kristol was to the manner born — the son of OG Republican star Irving Kristol, the so-called “godfather of neoconservatism” — so his casting off the Republican label is as strong an argument as there is for the notion that Donald Trump‘s and Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s GOP has mutated into something utterly unrecognizable to generations of Republicans.
(NOTE: when Kristol founded his conservative bible “The Weekly Standard” it was financed in part by News Corp’s billionaire Republican kingmaker Rupert Murdoch, who also seems troubled by Trump’s takeover of a party Murdoch once ostensibly controlled.)
Kristol: 75 to 80% of the Republican electorate is now for Trump, DeSantis, or Ramaswamy… the three worst candidates in the race… that’s why I’m pleased to be an ex-Republican pic.twitter.com/26esdBOFzM
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 24, 2023
Now Kristol is expressing disbelief that the Republican Party continues to sink even further, in his estimation, down from standards he and his contemporary conservatives espoused and promoted. The latest evidence of the GOP decline, according to Kristol, isn’t just Trump’s enduring — and, to him, perplexing — hold on the party, but that with him Trump’s top two rivals for the GOP presidential nomination comprise together a triumvirate of the “worst candidates” in the race.
“Now 75 or 80 percent of the Republican electorate is now for Trump, DeSantis, or Ramaswamy,” Kristol says, shaking his head, “and that really is astonishing…the three worst candidates in the race.”
