Conservative Tom Nichols called for the destruction of his former party before President Donald Trump finishes trashing the Constitution.
The Naval War College professor wrote in The Atlantic that the Republican Party he had joined as a young man had been hollowed out and stuffed with the "Trump family’s paranoia and corruption."
"I understand the attachment to that GOP, even among those who have sworn to defeat Donald Trump, but the time for sentimentality is over," Nichols wrote. "That party is long gone. Today the Republicans are the party of 'American carnage' and Russian collusion, of scams, plots, and weapons-grade contempt for the rule of law. The only decent, sensible, and conservative position is to vote against this Republican Party at every level, and bring the sad final days of a once-great political institution to an end. Then build the party back up again — from scratch."
Nichols said no judicial appointments were worth Trump's corruption of the Justice Department with Attorney General William Barr, and he warned the GOP was past the point of saving.
"The hardening of the GOP into a toxic conglomeration of hucksters, quislings, racists, theocrats, and cultists is already happening," he wrote. "The party gladly accepted support from white supremacists and the Russian secret services, and now welcomes QAnon kooks into its caucus. Conservatives must learn that the only way out of 'the wilderness' is first to vanquish those who led them there."
"No person should ever get a second chance to destroy the Constitution," Nichols concluded. "Trump has brought the United States to the brink of civil catastrophe, and the Republican Party has protected him from the consequences of all his immoral and illegal actions more ably than even Fred Trump did. Conservatives need to put the current Republican Party out of its — and our — misery."