Former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC) warned during a CNN interview on Tuesday that he doesn't see bright prospects for the future of the GOP if it continues to serve as a "cult" for former President Donald Trump.
While talking about upcoming primary elections in his home state, where Reps. Tom Rice (R-SC) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) are both facing Trump-backed challengers, Sanford said that the GOP needs to get back to being about issues and policy rather than simply a vehicle for Trump's grievances.
"It is on a path to political extinction if we stay on the road that we're on," he said. "The problem with the cult of personality is eventually that personality dies off. We age. We die off."
He then gave a blunt description of what currently animates the GOP base.
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"This party of late hasn't been about about ideas, it hasn't been about anything other than, sort of, are you for or against Trump," he said. "And that's a weird litmus test in the body politic, which ought to be about the larger broader set of ideas that we agree or disagree on."
He did predict, however, that both of the GOP incumbents in South Carolina would survive Trump's efforts to oust them.
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