The GOP must be changed through 'the cold fear of defeat': Former Republican strategist

Former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens has written a lengthy editorial in the New York Times in which he admits that the Republican Party of President Donald Trump has been in the making for decades -- and he wants to see it lose so that it can change.

At the start of his piece, Stevens acknowledges his own complicity in what the GOP has become, as he spent years believing that the darker forces within the party had a significant influence over its politics.

"There is a collective blame to be shared by those of us who have created the modern Republican Party that has so egregiously betrayed the principles it claimed to represent," he writes. "My j’accuse is against us all, not a few individuals who were the most egregious."

While Stevens wishes the GOP would change on its own, he doesn't believe that will be possible until the party suffers a crushing loss this fall -- and perhaps for other elections afterward.

"I’ve given up hope that there are any lines of decency or normalcy that once crossed would move Republican leaders to act as if they took their oath of office more seriously than their allegiance to party," he writes. "Only fear will motivate the party to change -- the cold fear only defeat can bring."

Read the entire piece here.