At the Democratic convention in Chicago, criticism of Donald Trump is flying, from party stars like Michelle and Barack Obama, but also from a handful of rebels in the Republican camp, who are calling for a vote for Kamala Harris.
“I’m going to be clear to my Republican friends who are watching me at home,” Geoff Duncan, a former lieutenant governor of Georgia, the state where Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, said Wednesday.
“Voting for Kamala Harris in 2024 does not make you a Democrat, it makes you a patriot,” he said, saying he was addressing the millions of Republicans and independent voters “tired of having to make excuses” for Donald Trump.
Many Republicans have opposed the former president since he entered politics, but the Democratic convention offered them an unusual platform.
For Geoff Duncan, the 78-year-old billionaire, convicted of criminal offences – a first for a former president and candidate – and twice subjected to impeachment proceedings, is a “direct threat to democracy”.
“Our party has become more like a cult in recent times, a cult that worships a criminal thug,” he said.
“Without empathy”
He was not the only one invited by the Democrats, who are seeking to rally Republicans and independents for this election which promises to be very close.
Former White House spokeswoman under Donald Trump (2019-2020), Stephanie Grisham, on Tuesday called her former boss a liar “without empathy, morality or fidelity to the truth.”
“I saw it when the cameras weren’t rolling. Behind the scenes, Trump is laughing at his supporters, calling them cavemen.”
The woman who was also the spokesperson for First Lady Melania Trump during the remainder of her husband’s term also recounted how she went from being a “fervent supporter” of Trump to resigning adviser after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by a horde of the Republican’s supporters.
That day, “I asked Melania if I could at least tweet that while peaceful protest is a right for all Americans, there is no place for lawlessness and violence.” “She responded with one word: no,” she told Democrats.
“I resigned because I love my country more than my party,” she concluded, adding that she would vote for Kamala Harris.
“Traitors to the cause”
John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, and a self-proclaimed “lifelong Republican,” also didn’t mince his words.
The Republican Party has been “kidnapped by extremists and turned into a cult.” “The party of John McCain,” a former senator he calls a “hero,” “is no more,” he lamented.
Convention organizers also released a video of former Trump voters explaining their choice to vote for Harris. “I made a big mistake,” Rich Logis said from Florida. “But it’s never too late to change your mind.”
Former Republican Vice President Mike Pence counterterrorism adviser Olivia Troye also spoke at the convention. Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican lawmaker who has consistently opposed Donald Trump, will speak Thursday.
For the former president, these Republicans are “traitors to the cause.”
His 2016 campaign adviser David Urban dismissed any substantial impact of these interventions on voters.
But he acknowledged on CNN that Geoff Duncan’s intervention “could give voters permission to vote for Kamala Harris” in his home state of Georgia.