Announcing, “I quit the Republican party and my job as an accomplice,” a senior strategist who has spent more than a decade advising and fundraising for Republicans has walked away from the GOP, complaining that he has had enough.
Taking a parting shot in a column for The Bulwark Monday, Miles Bruner, who served as a senior fundraising strategist for leading Republican digital fundraising firm Campaign Solutions for the past five years, announced he is stepping away from helping the Republican Party — and urged others to follow him.
Admitting his walking away won’t shake the GOP to its core, he began by stating, “Since Donald Trump descended that golden escalator in 2015, the Republican Party has devolved into a cult of personality that mirrors the worst authoritarian regimes of the last 100 years.”
He added the GOP has become "increasingly corrupt."
“While Trump and his supporters in Congress have been the driving force behind the right’s descent into despotism,” he wrote, it has been possible because people like himself — and he can no longer be party to that.
“I worked inside GOP circles through Trump’s takeover of the party, his initial downfall, and his resurgence in 2023–2024. At every step along the way, I rationalized, compartmentalized, and found excuses to stay tethered to the party, even as I grew to believe it was undermining the foundations of our constitutional republic,” he wrote, before adding, “I have decided I have finally had enough.”
“My ego is not so large that I believe I played a significant role in putting Trump into office,” he admitted before suggesting that others like him need “to follow their consciences and leave with their integrity still intact.”
“I’m fully aware that any excuses at this point won’t justify why I stayed so long and will only sound like thin attempts at rationalization to alleviate my personal guilt. Maybe they are. I know that the fact that I’ve finally taken action doesn’t on its own bring me absolution. That’s not what I’m looking for here. My intention rather is to try to explain how it is that people who know better don’t act on that belief—to illuminate how we justify our contributions to the degradation of our politics in real time,” he wrote, before making his plea to his colleagues.
“For those who remain and who harbor doubts about what the Republican Party has become, this is my message to you: I know the thought of walking away from your career and your familiar social network is terrifying. I urge you to recognize that our nation is heading down a very dark path. But it’s not too late to change direction,” he wrote. “If you believe in this country, now is the time to refuse to ferry its destruction for a tainted livelihood. Take a stand. Speak out. Show your pride as an American who believes in the Constitution and the values we grew up with.”