On Monday, Sofia Kinzinger, a longtime GOP insider who served as a communications director in President Donald Trump’s first White House, declared that the president has “destroyed” the Republican Party — and placed the blame squarely on GOP officials for enabling him at their own peril.

Kinzinger, who spent years working throughout the GOP before joining the first Trump administration, delivered the rebuke in a post on X:

“Dear Republicans in DC,

As you sit behind closed doors expressing your frustrations, and stay awake at night trying to figure out how to brace for the big punch you all know is coming, let me remind you of something: This is your fault. You’ve known who he is all along. You’ve bet on the same deeply currupt man over and over again, convincing yourselves that somehow, this time, it would be different. He isn’t breaking you. He has destroyed you. And you are just as responsible for where you find yourselves today. You enabled it. You defended it. You stayed silent when you knew better. You made the calculation, again and again, that protecting him was worth the cost. Now the bill is coming due.”

She signed the message with “Thank you for your attention” — a jab at Trump’s own posting style — before warning, “And we won’t let you forget it.”

Sofia Kinzinger is married to Adam Kinzinger, a former GOP lawmaker who became an outspoken critic of Trump and was one of 10 Republicans who voted to convict him of impeachment following the January 6 insurrection.

The couple’s criticisms of Trump and the GOP have grown increasingly vocal, reflecting a wave of defections by conservatives angered by their party’s embrace of Trump. They include longtime “Never Trump” Republicans like Charlie Sykes and Andrew Eggers, as well as ex-MAGA loyalists such as former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson.

The GOP has also recently seen lawmakers and candidates take steps to distance themselves from Trump amid historically poor polling numbers, with major midterm losses looming. Republican candidates have removed pro-MAGA messaging from their campaign materials, and a string of campaign ads has been careful to put daylight between themselves and their wildly unpopular president.

Another example came Monday, when Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) — whom polls show trailing his Democratic challenger in a narrow race — released an ad touting his background as an immigrant, asserting that he would fight corruption in Washington, D.C., and noting his bipartisan track record. “I’m not a rubber stamp for anyone,” he declared.

His ad follows a similar one from Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), who declared that Trump’s policies have “gone too far”.

Source: Alternet