Conservative maps out why 'the 'derangement of the Republican Party' is only getting worse

The state of the Republican Party in the Biden era was the topic of a robust discussion on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on May 3, with a panel of guests agreeing with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that the GOP has become increasingly unhinged.

The guests included conservative pundit Charlie Sykes — a blistering critic of former President Donald Trump — Financial Times' Ed Luce, the Associated Press's Jonathan Lemire, and Eddie Glaude, Jr., a professor of African-American studies at Princeton University who is often featured as a liberal pundit on MSNBC.

Scarborough, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP congressman, noted that pro-Trump Republicans have been going after Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming with a vengeance for condemning Trump's role in the January 6 insurrection — and that in Maricopa County, Arizona, Republicans have been conducting an overtly partisan audit of the votes in the 2020 presidential election. Those things, according to Sykes, not only illustrate "the derangement of the Republican Party" but also, the "acceleration of the derangement of the Republican Party."

Sykes told Scarborough and Brzezinski, "This has become internalized on the right —the willingness to look the other way…. The thought leadership, to the extent that there is any thought leadership at all on the right, has shifted to people like Tucker Carlson, who don't pretend any longer not to be pushing White nationalist sorts of narratives. And so, this is the really ugly moment."

Luce was every bit as critical of the 2021 GOP, arguing that it has more in common with far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's "hyper-nationalist" Fidesz Party than it does with Europe's more mainstream conservative parties.

Luce noted that "college-educated voters" are increasingly rejecting the Republican Party even though they "used to be the bedrock of Republican support." The GOP, Luce told Scarborough and Brzezinski, has "given up on winning over part-time moderate Republicans."

"They're doubling down on this idea of shrinking the electorate," Luce lamented. "If you don't like the people, dissolve them and get a new one. And that is a classic hallmark of what the Viktor Orbáns of this world are doing."

Luce added that now-President Joe Biden's victory over Trump in 2020 was "a great blow (in favor of) western liberal democracy," but warned that far-right "hyper-nationalism" remains a daunting problem in the world — from the Republican Party in the United States to Le Front National (the National Front) in France to Fidesz in Hungary.

"The Republicans are getting worse," Luce warned. "Next year, the French have a presidential election in which the far right under Marine Le Pen have a reasonable chance of winning. So, we're still in a crisis here."

Le Pen, whose critics have described her as a French equivalent of David Duke, ran for president of France in 2017 and lost to centrist President Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen has tried to soften the National Front's image just as Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, has tried to soften his White nationalist image.

Luce told Scarborough and Brzezinski he finds it "deeply alarming" that the Republican Party is still "following" Trump.

Watch the video below:

Morning Joe 6AM 5/3/2021 | MSNBC Breaking News Today May 3, 2021www.youtube.com