Longtime Texas Republican Says GOP Has Become a ‘Cult’ - Newsweek
A former Republican congressman from Texas said the GOP is now a "cult organized around one man," arguing that President Donald Trump's influence has transformed the party and made him "a gift" to Democrats and other political opponents.
Former Republican Congressman Alan Steelman said on CNN Friday that the party has steadily grown "darker and darker" since 2016. Steelman served as executive director of the Republican Party of Dallas County before being elected to Congress. He's among the Republicans crossing party lines to endorse Democrats.
Steelman said he had long resisted describing the Republican Party as a cult but no longer believed the label could be avoided.
"This grand old party [is] no longer grand, just old," Steelman said. "I've resisted for a long time using the word cult. But we're no longer a party, really. This is a cult organized around one man."
Steelman, who represented Texas in Congress during the 1970s, said some supporters view former President Donald Trump as "a gift of God," before adding that Trump has instead become politically beneficial to his opponents.
"Some of his supporters even refer to him as a gift of God, and I agree with that," Steelman said. "He's a gift, not to them. He's a gift to us."
The former congressman framed his criticism as part of a broader attack on what he called changes in the Republican Party since Trump's rise to political prominence, arguing that the GOP had abandoned principles associated with Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.
Steelman, a Dallas businessman, is among a group of roughly 25 former Texas Republicans who have been campaigning for Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race.
Newsweek reached out to the National GOP for comment.
Talarico’s campaign released a list of more than 20 Republicans endorsing him over his GOP opponent Ken Paxton. Some said their support was motivated largely by opposition to Paxton’s conduct during his time as Texas attorney general rather than a rejection of the Republican Party.
The Republicans include former congressmen Steve Bartlett and Adam Kinzinger and Tom Phillips, the former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
Phillips wrote in an opinion piece that voters must decide which candidate "would best represent our state to the rest of the nation and the world."
Paxton’s public career "has been marred almost since its inception by charges of impropriety, and his high-profile Senate race has exposed these controversies to tens of millions of Americans," Phillips wrote.
"Paxton’s longstanding reputation will embarrass Texas in ways our state simply cannot afford."
Phillips wrote that, while he does not agree with all of Talarico’s past statements or current positions, he is "confident that he would serve this great state with dignity and honor."
Last week, Neil Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush, revealed he had voted for Talarico, saying that character "matters more than party affiliation."
CNN released a poll this week showing Talarico narrowly ahead with less than a week to go. ActiVote's newest survey of 400 likely voters, fielded October 22 to 28, had him up 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent, a lead that grew from 2 points a week earlier. Its margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 points.
Texas Public Opinion Research had Talarico ahead 51 percent to 47 percent among 969 likely voters surveyed October 15 to 18, with a 3.9-point margin of error. His lead in that series has slipped by about a point a month since August, though he still carried independents 66 percent to 28 percent.
A Fox News poll of 1,398 likely voters, taken October 15 to 19, found the race tied at 49 percent after Talarico led by 2 in September. Texas Southern University put the Democrat up 49 percent to 47 percent.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gray R. Thomas
