Many Republicans privately admit their party is now 'built largely on lies': White House veteran

In the wake of the first day of public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump, contributor for The Atlantic and conservative think-tank fellow Peter Wehner wrote that yesterday's testimony from senior US diplomat Bill Taylor "was merely another massive boulder in the avalanche of evidence against the president."

"We are well beyond the point that any disinterested person can deny that the president abused his power and acted in a corrupt manner, in ways the American founders explicitly warned against," Wehner writes.

According to Wehner, yesterday's hearing only deepened the "complicity" of Republicans in Trump's latest scandal.

Wehner goes on to write that it's not just the "partisanship and political tribalism" that makes the Trump era so unusual.

"It is the degree to which the transgressive nature of Trump—his willingness to go places no other president has gone, to say and do things that no president before him has done—has exposed the Republican Party."

The end goal for the Republican party, Wehner says, is to "defend Trump at all costs."

One can be critical of Democrats and also believe the following:

"The Republican Party under Donald Trump is a party built largely on lies, and it is now maintained by politicians and supporters who are willing to 'live within the lie,' to quote the great Czech dissident (and later president) Václav Havel. Many congressional Republicans privately admit this but, with very rare exceptions—Senator Mitt Romney of Utah is the most conspicuous example—refuse to publicly acknowledge it."

You can read Wehner's full op-ed here.