The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, writing a day ahead of the expected official GOP presidential nomination of Donald Trump,
decried the "captivity" of the party by "a vulgar demagogue with a thuggish retinue."
Kristol extolled the Grand Old Party as "the sounder party, the more constitutional party, and the more responsible party" even as it was "always perhaps the stupider party, the clumsier party, and the stodgier party."
"Now, Donald Trump's Republican party is stupider than ever, but it is no longer sound or constitutional or responsible," he writes.
"So it was a depressing first day here at the Republican convention in Cleveland," he writes.
"It was the day when it became incontrovertibly clear that a distinguished political party has fallen into the grip of a vulgar demagogue with a thuggish retinue."
And, Kristol argues, "even if they lose, the after-effects will be substantial, and recovery and renaissance won't be easy."
But he also writes it "was exciting to stand where [Cleveland Cavaliers] LeBron [James] so recently stood," noting:
"If the Cavaliers can come back from 3-1 down to win the first sports championship for Cleveland in over a half-century, we can endure the Trump captivity of the GOP. And we can prevail."
Kristol
has been a relentless critic of Trump, and has long advocated
for a third-party candidacy that failed to materialize before the convention.
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