'Everything will get worse': Former Republican predicts dire future for GOP

MSNBC's Charlie Sykes said the Republican Party is on a downward slide, and he said conservatives were willing to follow Donald Trump all the way to rock bottom.

The former Republican said party leaders were unprepared for Trump in 2016 and still haven't figured out how to stop him from further corrupting political norms, and Sykes told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" said it would be nearly impossible to repair the damage.

"Think of what's happened to our political culture," Sykes said. "It's easy to dismiss Donald Trump as this narcissistic clown, but it is hard to understate the impact that he's had on our political standards. To your point, look, you are seeing a full-out attack, not just on the culture of facts, which we had back in 2016, but now on all of the institutions of our constitutional republic."

Even the former president's 2024 rivals have attacked the system of law and sowed distrust in any institution in an effort to protect him from accountability, and Sykes offered a deeply pessimistic view of the GOP's future.

"The willingness to accept lies, I think, has been established over the last few years, but think about the moment we're in right now," Sykes said. "Donald Trump is -- you mentioned, you know, what's going to happen in the future. It is rock-solid certain that Donald Trump will continue to make the threats, will continue to make the insults. Everything that's happening now will get worse, and the Republican Party and the evangelical church will go along with it. To your larger point, this has long-term importance. Things like this, when they're broken, they are hard to put back together."

Host Joe Scarborough agreed with Sykes' grim assessment, and said a second Trump presidency would literally destroy American democracy.

"If Republicans keep this line of thinking, continue their support for Donald Trump, they need not fool themselves," Scarborough said. "A second Trump administration would destroy the Department of Justice, would destroy the FBI, would destroy the federal government's rule of law, would destroy judicial independence. It would destroy the third branch of America's government, it would rip to shreds Madisonian democracy. They need to understand what they're doing, and perhaps they do."

"I'm just trying to figure out what is so important about this former reality TV host that they're willing to literally throw away Madisonian democracy to defend him," Scarborough added.

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