GOP strategist warns anti-Trump Republicans: Speak out now — or 'regret your silence'

31 October 2024

Some of Donald Trump's Republican adversaries are openly supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential race, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona). And on Wednesday, October 30, Harris picked up another GOP endorsement: former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On X, formerly Twitter, Schwarzenegger posted, "I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That's why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz."

Some anti-Trump Republicans, however, will criticize him privately while being afraid to do so publicly. But GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, a Never Trump conservative who is supporting Harris, urges them to speak out in a biting article published by The Bulwark on October 30.

Longwell is blunt, telling fellow Republicans that if they recognize Trump as a "threat" but don't speak out, they are failing their country at a crucial time.

"I have a question for former Trump Administration officials, Republican electeds and former electeds, business leaders, and conservative writers and pundits who recognize Donald Trump for the threat he is," Longwell argues. "Actually, it's a question for anyone on the right who knows what Trump's reelection could mean for the country, for liberal democracy, and for the world — and, who, in the face of this threat, has decided to maintain either a posture of silence or both-sides-are-bad neutrality. My question is this: How are you going to feel if Trump wins on Tuesday by an extremely narrow margin?"

Longwell continues, "I suspect you'll spend the next four years holding your breath. Because if Donald Trump does a tenth of what he has promised — pulls the United States out of NATO, abandons Ukraine and sides with Vladimir Putin, puts RFK Jr. and Elon Musk in charge of serious parts of the American government, rounds up 15 million undocumented immigrants into camps and deports them, seeks political retribution on those who opposed his candidacy — I suspect you'll come to regret your silence when you could have made a difference."

Longwell stresses that for anti-Trump Republicans, it shouldn't be a "bridge too far" to "tell everyone what you really believe."

"It's still not too late," Longwell tells them. "Every day, more people are speaking out — people with reputations, and reservations, but whose consciences won't let them sit this one out. You shouldn't sit this one out either. You should not decide, after a career in leadership, that this time, you'd rather just be a spectator."

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

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