'He’s our criminal': Conservative editor torches Republicans’ 'cult-like behavior' toward Trump

21 August 2023

Editor-in-chief of The Bulwark Charlie Sykes tore into Republican presidential candidates for being "either unable or unwilling to break Donald Trump's hold" on the GOP, which Sykes described as "cult-like behavior" on Monday's edition of MSNBC's The ReidOut.

Host Joy Reid began the segment by citing a recent NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll which found that "forty-one percent say that Trump should continue as Republican Party's leader, fifty-seven percent say either that Trump was a good president, but it's time to consider other party leaders, twenty-six percent want a party with a new leader with personal behavior."

Reid observed that "there are some people who are open to something new. But among Republican caucusgoers, two-thirds don't believe he's committed crimes. He has got ninety-two, ninety-four felony counts? But they don't think he's done anything wrong. I mean, the insulation is really, really strong and there isn't a lot of pushback. What do you make of what Steven Hassan said about how you can sort of draw people out of this?"

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Sykes replied, "Well, some of us have been trying to do that for eight years, and you can see how successful we've been. I mean, this is a cult and it is the numbers that you read out before that people trust Donald Trump more than they trust religious leaders, more than they trust their family and friends. This is after all of the lies, after all of the fraud, after the coup attempt, after being charged with violating the Espionage Act, but after conspiracies, after being accused of racketeering. And yet in a cult, of course, you demand belief despite the falsehoods. You demand loyalty despite the character. And you know what we've seen over the last eight years is people have gone in the opposite direction. People who used to claim that character matters now decide that character doesn't matter. The party of law and order now basically says, 'Yeah, he's a criminal, but he's our criminal.'"

Sykes noted that "the deprogramming that might work in other cases is, it's obviously proven to be difficult, in part because there is this vast media ecosystem, that reinforces the cult-like behavior that attacks anyone that tries to do any of the deprogramming or tells the truth. Look what happens to the people within the Republican Party who have tried. To say, 'Hey, you wouldn't raise your kids this way. You wouldn't hire, you know, as an employee like this.' Look what's happened to 'em. Look what's happened to Liz Cheney. Look what's happening to Adam Kinzinger. Look at the poll results for, even, Chris Christie. So this is part of the problem that we face now, and the Republican Party — look, there are a lot of Republicans that look at this and are horrified, and yet they are either unable or unwilling to break Donald Trump's hold on this party."

Reid agreed, adding, "Or they're like Nikki Haley and they just switch to the other side and go right back to, you know, worshiping him."

Reid also stressed that "there's a violent side to this religious belief in Trump. And look, we don't know what the specific person, you know, whether this person voted for Trump, but you've now had this real anger against the LGBT community. You had a woman who just had a pride flag in her window, a store owner who was shot and killed, you know? And apparently, she had gotten several disparaging remarks about having the rainbow flag. This is costing people real trauma and costing them their lives."

Watch below or at this link.

MSNBC 08 21 2023 19 27 00www.youtube.com

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