'Deranged' Republicans have gone off the rails with FBI attacks after Mar-a-Lago search: conservative

In a scorching column for the Daily Beast, conservative Matt Lewis complained that the Republican Party that he joined has become unrecognizable under Donald Trump and the GOP reaction to the search at Mar-a-Lago for stolen national security documents has pushed them into "deranged" territory.

As Lewis notes, there have been many reasons to part ways with Republicans during the Trump years, but that latest outrage, where GOP lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have called to "defund the FBI" over the Mar-a-Lago search, has reached a new low.

With former RNC head Michael Steele calling the Georgia lawmaker "Sh*t-for-brains" after her anti-FBI diatribe, Lewis took on the entire party.

"Instead of turning on Donald Trump following the devastating revelations in the Jan. 6 hearings (or, at least, exercising strategic silence), the party’s reaction was to immediately fall in line. Again," he wrote. "After a 2020 election cycle that saw the 'law and order' party criticize Democrats for wanting to 'defund the police,' we’ve seen quite a few members of the right’s commentariat blithely wave off video of MAGA rioters beating Capitol police officers with flagpoles. (Those cops’ lives don’t matter, to the Blue Lives Matter crowd.) Now, a lot of those same voices on the right are saying, 'Defund the FBI.' So much for lionizing the law enforcement heroes who run toward danger."

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Asking rhetorically, why the change in attitude, Lewis suggested, "It’s not because the police have suddenly become more abusive, and it’s not because Republicans figured out that standing against law enforcement wins votes. The real reason concerns Trump’s attempt to avoid accountability and oversight."

"This is just one of many outrageously cynical flip-flops for the party of Trump. Today’s GOP is inscrutable, even deranged," he asserted before adding, "The fundamental goal of conservatism in America was to conserve democracy. Today’s illiberal right wants to destroy it."

"We are left with a party without a foundation, without a roadmap, and without a soul. It does have a brand though, it’s tacky and gold-plated and it reads 'TRUMP,'" Lewis lamented before concluding, "Absent deep, abiding principles, we’ll fall for anything. Donald Trump probably won’t be around to see the aftermath when the music stops."

You can read more here.