The Never Trump Republicans who can’t bring themselves to back Biden | Republicans

They broke up with Donald Trump. They have gone public with their concerns about the threat he poses to democracy and the rule of law. But voting for Joe Biden? That’s a bridge too far.

A split appeared in Never Trump Movement. in the Republican Party. There are some who condemn the former US president and argue that in what is essentially a two-party system, there is a moral imperative to vote for his Democratic opponent in November.

Then there is Republicans who violently ignore Trump but stop supporting Biden, implying that both choices are unpleasant, forcing them to consider another option, such as putting another name on the ballot.

This category includes Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, who said in March he won’t endorse his former boss, but he also made it clear: “I would never vote for Joe Biden. I’m a Republican.

There’s also Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who is running against Trump in the Republican primary. He said at a recent event at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that he would never support Trump, but he also couldn’t bring himself to vote for the current president. “President Biden, in my opinion, has expired,” Christy said.

He was joined this week by Paul Ryan, former speaker of the House of Representatives. He said Yahoo Finance: “Character is too important to me and this is a job that requires a character like him [Trump] it just doesn’t. Having said that, I really don’t agree [Biden] about politics. Last time I wrote to a Republican, this time I will write to a Republican.

While such disagreement with Trump and his authoritarian ambitions is welcome, critics say refusing to support his opponent over political differences creates a false equivalence between them. If a significant number of Republican voters do the same by not voting or writing in a name like “Ronald Reagan,” it could prove costly for Biden in a close election.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and Tea Party activist turned Trump foe, said: “There’s no respect for guys like Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan coming out and saying. “I’m not going to vote for Trump, but I’m also not going to vote for the only person who can beat the unfit.” To me, that’s cowardly. What they are doing is staying relevant as Republicans. They want to run again as Republicans.

Walsh, who challenged Trump in the 2020 GOP primary, added: “Here’s the deal. If you as a Republican say I’m voting for Joe Biden because Trump is unfit, you end your career as a Republican. I did it five years ago. [Former congressman] Adam Kinzinger did this last year. Then you cease to be relevant as a Republican. Guys like Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence don’t want to give it up. This is a purely political decision.”

Kinzinger broke with his party after the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol and was later one of two Republicans, along with Liz Cheney of Wyoming, to join a House committee to investigate the attack. He did not seek re-election in the 2022 midterms.

Kinzinger said this week: “Even though I don’t agree with all of Joe Biden’s policies, he doesn’t want to get democracy, so I intend to vote for him. Even if he was like Elizabeth Warren, a little more to the left, he wouldn’t be a threat to democracy, but he’s probably been pretty moderate in the Democratic view lately. I definitely don’t think he’s as much of a threat as Trump is.

Despite the 88 criminal charges against him, Trump clinched the Republican nomination in March. But its support remains soft around the edges. This week, two months after she left the race, Nikki Haley secured it more than 21% of the vote in the Indiana primary, held on a day when television news was dominated by the trial of Trump and adult film performer Stormy Daniels.

Last month, in another sign of continued discontent with Trump among the party faithful, Haley received nearly 17 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary. Biden has launched an advertising campaign to target Haley voters in mostly suburban areas in swing states. A number of Republicans who oppose Trump are willing to help the effort despite the risk of backlash from their own party.

This week, Jeff Duncan, a former lieutenant governor of Georgia who spoke out against Trump’s campaign lies, endorsed the president and called on other Republicans to do the same. He wrote in Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper: “I’m voting for a decent man with whom I disagree on the policy of a criminal defendant with no moral compass.”

The former Reagan administration official Bill Kristol also came to terms with his vote for Biden, describing him as a “conventional Democrat” and “better than I expected on some things, especially foreign policy.”

But Kristol said he respects the reluctance of Pence, Ryan and Christie to take the extra step of voting for Democrats. “It’s not a crazy decision. That’s fair enough. They can’t stand Trump, they won’t vote for him, but in a way it’s not their fault that the other side hasn’t provided them with an acceptable alternative.

Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together, hopes that mindset will appeal to Republicans who supported Trump twice and may resent being told to switch to democrats. “From a practical standpoint, it’s worth it to get some of those voters to just not vote for Trump,” he said.

Kinzinger, the former congressman, agreed: “For some people, I think there should be permission to align with somebody or vote against both of them just because if they’re never going to vote for Joe Biden, I’d much rather just jump the queue for voting. But those who can stomach it should certainly consider voting for Joe Biden.

There are prominent figures still sitting on the fence. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who twice voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trials, has not yet made it clear whether he will support Biden. He told the NBC press conference last December: “If I approve them, that will be the kiss of death – I won’t.”

Cheney, who lost her congressional seat to a Trump-backed challenger, said the Washington Post newspaper in March that she had not yet decided whether to officially endorse Biden. She really intends to “educate” Americans about how dangerous Trump is in the run-up to Election Day.

But another group of Trump naysayers in the Republican Party went in a different direction, portraying Biden as a “woke” radical outside the political mainstream and therefore Trump as the lesser of two evils.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Minority Leader, eviscerated Trump after the Jan. 6 uprising; Trump routinely attacked McConnell as an “Old Crow” and hurled racial slurs at his wife, Elaine Chao. Yet after Trump secured the Republican nomination in March, McConnell supported him for president.

Bill Barr, a former attorney general who said last year that Trump “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office,” has now declared that he wants to see Trump back in it. He told CNN, “I think Trump would do less damage than Biden, and I think all of these things are about the threat to democracy — I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”

Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, supported Haley in the GOP primary but is now supporting Trump in the general election. He explained in an interview with the Guardian: “Look, I worked hard for Trump not to be the nominee, but he is the party’s nominee, and even though I don’t care about Trump, I’ll take a Republican administration over a progressive, left-wing socialist administration any day of the week.

The governor said of Biden, “He’s created a culture here that America doesn’t want to see. A culture of not coping with the border. A culture of lying about inflation – inflation is crushing families. How families feel their financial pressures in November will determine who wins the election.

To seasoned observers of the GOP’s capitulation to Trump, such sentiments come as little surprise. Curt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “You cannot credibly claim to be concerned about the health of democracy and then lend your support and, more importantly, your vote to the architect of the destruction of democracy. You own this. You are not just a bystander at this point; you are complicit.”

Bardella, a former speaker and senior Republican adviser on the House Oversight Committee, was also scathing in his condemnation of those who announce they will not vote for Trump only to portray Biden as equally insufferable.

“Talk about a lack of intestinal fortitude. Anyone who wants to try to put Joe Biden on the same level as Donald Trump needs to get their sanity checked because this is just an absurd false equivalence. This is a very black and white issue here. You’re either pro-democracy or you’re not. All the other issues we disagree on – and there are many – don’t matter if we don’t have a functioning democracy.”