January 4, 2020: Longtime GOP Voice: Trump Is an "Existential Threat to American Democracy."

 

1/4/20: John Stipanovich talks about voting for Gerald Ford in 1976. He helped Ronald Reagan win election in 1984. He advised the Bush 43 team on how to win the 2000 Florida recount. Until this week, he lobbied and did legal work for Republican causes. Now he has separated himself from his law firm.

 

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“I do consider him to be an existential threat to American democracy. He attacks the very concept of truth.” 

John Stipanovich

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He says he plans to dedicate the next chapter of his life to defeating Trump in his bid for reelection. 

In an interview with Florida Politics he admits to being a “Never Trumper,” and for the best of reasons. 

Is [Trump] the first demagogue the country has suffered from? Huey Long, Father Coughlin, pick somebody. But he’s the first to be President of the United States, someone that has reached that pinnacle of power. And that’s what makes him uniquely dangerous.

 

And I do consider him to be an existential threat to American democracy. He attacks the very concept of truth…

 

What Donald Trump represents, the tendencies he exhibits, the emotions he evokes, are frightening and they’re dangerous in my judgment. He’s the ultimate con man. He’s the carnival barker, and it’s just amazing how many rubes there are in the country.

 

Stipanovich admits the Republican party has long had a “nasty underbelly,” but the right-wing nuts were in the minority. The twisted “genius” of Trump, he says, has been to sense the rot. He has appealed to the worst elements of the party and those elements have “metastasized.” 

“I find it sad,” he told the interviewer, “but at the same time, in a perverse way, I find it stimulating.” 

I remember reading some history a long time ago about a French order of the day issued at the beginning of World War I when the French offensive on the Rhine failed. The Germans were rushing toward Paris in the west, shattered French units were streaming back. And the order the day was: “Stop where you are, dig in and fight.” And that’s what I’m doing.

 

Stipanovich, knows what he’s talking about when he promises to dig in and fight. He served with the First Recon Marines in Vietnam and took part in the bloody combat related to the Tet Offensive in 1968. Now he’ll fight a different battle for the soul of his party, and the soul of the nation.

First Recon Marines - unidentified Marines.