'Rotten at the core': GOP strategist slams MAGA’s 'pathetic' attacks on John Kelly

24 October 2024

During a town hall event with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night, October 23, CNN's Anderson Cooper asked the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee if she considers former President Donald Trump a "fascist." And Harris candidly replied, "Yes, I do."

Harris described warnings from former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly as a "911 call to the American people."

During an interview with the New York Times, Kelly revealed that Trump had praised Adolf Hitler and criticized U.S. military leaders for not being more like Hitler's generals in Nazi Germany. Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general, told the Times that ideologically, Trump fit the definition of "fascism."

Trump's MAGA devotees, in response to Kelly's warning, have been attacking him relentlessly.

In a scathing article published by The Bulwark on October 24, GOP strategist Sarah Longwell — a Never Trump conservative who is supporting Harris — slams those responses as a "pathetic, if not predictable" example of how "rotten at the core" the MAGA movement is.

Longwell notes, "Trump lickspittle Scott Jennings" has been "telling us that Kelly probably made the whole thing up and that the real Hitlers are on college campuses" and "Trump apologist Ryan James Girdusky" said, "I, honest to God, like most Americans, do not care about Gen. Kelly's farewell tour." And "Trump confidante Mike Davis," Longwell adds, described Kelly as "Gen. Christine Blasey Ford."

"There is something deeply pernicious to this routine," Longwell warns. "These people want you to forget the cumulative weight of the accusations against Trump, especially when those accusations are coming from his own former employees — many of them high-ranking military officers. They're doing so not because they don't believe the accusations, but because they know how harmful they could be…. Are we supposed to believe that this is all about some personal tiff between Kelly and Trump when so many others have so many similar accounts?"

Longwell continues, "When Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, told us that 'the American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution' on January 6th?.... When Mark Milley called Trump 'fascist to the core' and 'the most dangerous person to this country?' When Bill Barr said Trump 'shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office?' I have another idea: Why don't we accept the obvious truth that is staring us in the face? Trump is dangerous and unfit, and all the responsible people who served in his last term have told us as much."

Sarah Longwell's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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