#NeverTrump GOP endorsements LATEST: Graham and Lee voted McMullin

[Gustaf]

The thing with Trump is that he crosses lines on a lot of issues that make it impossible for people to support him.

[Gustaf]

Would it be possible to move this list to the first post of this or another thread so it's easier to update and follow it?

[Gustaf]

One thing that's been hard for me to reconcile. Polls have broadly suggested that Trump is competitive with Clinton, pulling nearly all Republican voters (like 85%-90%). At the same time, rather significant numbers of GOP officeholders and party people are out against Trump. And presumably even more of them are privately opposed to him but feel the need to prioritize unity in their public image.

Now, I know people say that there is a gap between the "establishment" and the Republican voters (and clearly there is). But surely, Republican politicians must SOMEWHAT represent real Republicans? Like, I'd have expected there to be a decent chunk of Republican voters who'd feel similarly repulsed by Trump.

[Gustaf]

Moderate is misleading, just as National Socialism wasn't really a centrist position, even though they tried to claim so.

[Gustaf]

Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) is voting for Clinton.

I think that makes him the first #NeverTrump Republican currently in Congress to endorse Clinton.  The others who've done it are all former officials who are now out of politics.  The other #NeverTrumpers still in office are mostly talking about writing in a name, or have flirted with the idea of voting third party.

Hanna's district is R+3 in Hillary's home state. The logic seems pretty clear.

Hanna is retiring this year.  He has little to no self-interest in this move.

Yeah, I think it goes the other way. It's pretty clear that if it weren't for the concern of losing the substantial Trumpist chunk of the GOP Primary electorate tons of officeholders would be coming out against him.

[Gustaf]

Susan Collins will not be voting for Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html

that's a pretty big deal, especially as Trump is trying to win Maine or at least ME2.

I really like Collins. I'm glad she dumped trump.

Collins may switch parties. 

If Trump is THAT BAD, why isn't Collins endorsing Clinton?  She's not a conservative Republican; she's the most liberal Republican in the Senate, and no less than a moderate, in terms of the overall spectrum.  If Trump is such a scumbag, why isn't an endorsement of Hillary Clinton too much of a leap for Susan Collins?

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I hear this a lot from the #NeverTrump crowd.  I just love being "understood" by the elitists of politics, Susan Collins being a personification of that elitism.  But the public HAS demanded action, and Susan Collins' response is to reinforce the Globalism that has ruined the lives of so much of the "public" that is demanding "action".  If Susan Collins will not respond affirmatively to the demands of the public with its accompanying real passions that chose Donald Trump as the nominee of her party, they what will it take to get her to respond affirmatively to those demands for action?  Riots in the streets?  A March On Washington like the 1931 Bonus Marchers?  Susan Collins cares not one whit for the folks that are, in fact, demanding action.  She doesn't want to act on their demands.  That's the condescending excrement she throws out.  If there's one thing I hate, it's folks who want to tell me how justified my grievances are, yet not want to address a single one of them, except for MAYBE the most trivial.

Not to be condescending, but since the solutions you want are really stupid and pointless it kind of leaves them in a bind - either they're willing to pander to you by lying and spouting nonsense (see Trump) or they aren't and then you'll keep getting madz.

[Gustaf]

Susan Collins will not be voting for Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html

that's a pretty big deal, especially as Trump is trying to win Maine or at least ME2.

I really like Collins. I'm glad she dumped trump.

Collins may switch parties. 

If Trump is THAT BAD, why isn't Collins endorsing Clinton?  She's not a conservative Republican; she's the most liberal Republican in the Senate, and no less than a moderate, in terms of the overall spectrum.  If Trump is such a scumbag, why isn't an endorsement of Hillary Clinton too much of a leap for Susan Collins?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I hear this a lot from the #NeverTrump crowd.  I just love being "understood" by the elitists of politics, Susan Collins being a personification of that elitism.  But the public HAS demanded action, and Susan Collins' response is to reinforce the Globalism that has ruined the lives of so much of the "public" that is demanding "action".  If Susan Collins will not respond affirmatively to the demands of the public with its accompanying real passions that chose Donald Trump as the nominee of her party, they what will it take to get her to respond affirmatively to those demands for action?  Riots in the streets?  A March On Washington like the 1931 Bonus Marchers?  Susan Collins cares not one whit for the folks that are, in fact, demanding action.  She doesn't want to act on their demands.  That's the condescending excrement she throws out.  If there's one thing I hate, it's folks who want to tell me how justified my grievances are, yet not want to address a single one of them, except for MAYBE the most trivial.

Not to be condescending, but since the solutions you want are really stupid and pointless it kind of leaves them in a bind - either they're willing to pander to you by lying and spouting nonsense (see Trump) or they aren't and then you'll keep getting madz.

"Stupid and pointless" is what a number of folks think are the very lives of Trump supporters.  That's why it's so easy for them to dismiss their plight as displaced workers.

If their very lives were not viewed as "stupid and pointless", solutions to their very real problems would be sought actively by folks who, frankly, view their lot as some sort of karma for their opposition to "progressive" values.

So, what's the solution to people losing these jobs? Recreating the 50s? Dismantling global trade? Building a wall? The world changes and sometimes that change is painful for some groups in society. And in those cases I do think society should help people adjust. But the Republican base is just stoked up on racism and craziness. While I agree that it was cynical of the Republican elite to fan these flames I think it's weird that the reverse is never pointed out - one reason this group is doing badly is that they decided they would rather be represented by people who gave them no help as long as those people promised to rant and rave about gays and blacks.

The plight of the white working class is very real and I do think that deserves a lot of respect. But the Trump track is a total dead-end for their aspirations. 

[Gustaf]

Charles Fried, who served as U.S. Solicitor General under Reagan, with a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump opinion piece on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/opinions/danger-of-trump-opinion-charles-fried/index.html

Pretty powerful piece.

"I have a sense for these things. I am not, like Judge Gonzalo Curiel, just the child of immigrants but an immigrant myself. I was four years old when my family and I fled Prague just after the Nazis invaded. I was 13 when I raised my hand and swore an oath of allegiance to the United States and became a citizen."

[Gustaf]

I won't add Powell to the list.  He's not really a Republican.  He's a true RINO; Clinton 2016 is the third straight Presidential election in which Powell has conspicuously endorsed the Democratic candidate.  At this point, Joe Lieberman is more of a Democrat than Colin Powell is a Republican.

i agree that he seems to be quite liberal in some ways but otherwise your comparison doesn't hold water, imho.

1) two of his 3 endorsements have been for the SAME candidate.

2) trump is THE essential anti-republican and resulted into far more un-endorsements/crossover-voters than any other candidate since decades.

Trump described himself as a "Rockefeller Republican" when he stated in the mid-1990s that he was a Republican.  Endorsing the Democratic candidate 3 years in a row pretty much suggests that you're a not a Republican at heart.

The non-endorsements and unendorsements of Trump should put him down by 15 points, but we're nowhere near that level.  Indeed, while Trump is unlikely to win the popular vote, his chances of winning the EV with fewer popular votes than Clinton is fairly decent.  Trump may well lose by 15, but no poll shows that, and some polls show him even with Clinton.  That's something McGovern, Mondale, and Goldwater could never say.

There was literally a poll showing Trump down by 15 yesterday. And didn't Mondale at least tie Reagan at some point?