Bruce Bartlett served in both the Reagan and Senior Bush administrations, but he has since renounced the Republican Party, although he does not consider himself a Democrat. Today he let loose with a tweetstorm about the current state of the GOP and the president, and I thought I’d gather the tweets together and post them here.

The initial tweet can be found at https://twitter.com/BruceBartlett/status/1016797699457388551

Bruce Bartlett’s Tweetstorm:  @BruceBartlett: Many on the left view anti-Trump folks on the right with suspicion. Maybe they’re right. Any anti-Trump conservative who supports Brett Kavenaugh, who will rubber-stamp EVERY Trump policy, is deserving of suspicion. Makes me think their objections to Trump are purely stylistic.

Personally, I am suspicious of anti-Trump conservatives who insist on remaining members of the Republican Party. In theory, there is a case for remaining inside to guide the party back to sanity. In practice, they are enabling the Trumpsters….

like a parent who give their addict child money for food while knowing that it will almost certainly be used to buy drugs. ANY support for the GOP at this point gives aid and comfort to fascism. The only moral position is to leave the party…

and let it die a decent death. Only then can responsible people work to rebuild a center-right party that does not depend for victory on the votes of racists, radical extremists, bigots, fanatics and the other unsavory characters that Trump caters to and depends upon for power.

As anyone who has dealt with an addicted loved one knows, you cannot help them until they hit rock bottom and sincerely ask for help. Until that happens, any aid you give simply enables their addiction. The GOP must also hit rock bottom before decent people should lend a hand.

There is no danger that the country will be deprived of a center-right party; there will always be one. But it must be one purged of Trumpian insanity, based on classic conservative principle of prudence, intelligence and respect for those on the other side, politically.

The utter stupidity and venality and the Trumpsters has no place anywhere in American politics and more than the Nazi Party does in modern Germany. Unfortunately, I see no way at present the crush the fascist right without a great deal of pain & suffering by innocent people.

The end will come, I fear, with some sort of bang rather than a whimper. Historically, wars and violent revolutions have been the end of immoral, illegitimate regimes. And sometimes those events led to counterrevolutions that were worse (Russia 1917, Napoleonic France etc.).

Not making a prediction. It’s just that presently I see no path back to normalcy that doesn’t involve a lot of pain and suffering.