Reagan might be rolling in his grave.
The Republican Party, which has propped up former President Ronald Reagan, has lost its way by shoulder-shrugging Trump's "policy of appeasement" signal.
Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes called out the party for failing to condemn former President Donald Trump's recent comments and reported plans he's hatching to neuter NATO if, for instance, member countries fail to pony up 2% of their GDP.
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“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump said during a rally in Conway, South Carolina, on Saturday. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”
"This is genuinely shocking," Sykes said during an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner. "I mean if you step back from the clownish-ness of Donald Trump: what we're seeing is a seismic shift in the Republican Party. This is an abandonment not just of Reagan foreign policy, but of a century of Republican foreign policy."
"And yet, the party is going along with it."
Sykes was emphatic that the words coming out of Trump's mouth aren't musings or hot air.
They're actionable from an almost shadow presidency operating from Florida and could trigger a future war.
"It's not just the rhetoric," he said. "I mean the other context year is the Republican party and the House of Representatives is in the process of blocking aid to Ukraine, handing Vladimir Putin a victory that he was not able to win on the battlefield."
"So it is extraordinary to watch the Republican party go along with rhetoric that would've been considered absolutely beyond the pale and reckless even a few years ago in Trump's first term."
He fears the irreversible fallout.
"Because this is the former president of the United States, perhaps future commander-in-chief, who is signaling to the rest of the world, to our allies, to Vladimir Putin, and to China, a policy of appeasement and weakness," Sykes said. "This invites aggression. This can lead to the kind of miscalculations that can cause war."
"Republicans used to understand this at a visceral level."
