When Republicans lose Karl Rove, you know the party is in trouble.
Rove, an architect of George W. Bush’s two presidential election victories, recently wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in which he announced he will vote for Democrat Jon Rosenthal over Republican Bo French for Texas railroad commissioner.
Granted, even if everything is bigger in Texas, a vote in a secondary state race isn’t usually national news. It is, however, in this case for two reasons.
One, Rove is as dyed in Republican red as they come. Two, Rove’s support for a Democrat is prompted by Republican French’s vile comments about Asian students at the University of Texas.
Other establishment Republicans, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn, have rightly denounced French.
I’m glad to see them take that stand.
But don’t be fooled into thinking their disappointment, frustration and simmering anger end with a third-rate candidate for an obscure office.
Loyal Republicans are tired of Trump's antics
I’ve talked in recent months to a number of strong conservatives and loyal Republicans who’ve expressed growing frustration with the direction of the party and the often shaky leadership of President Donald Trump.
Unlike Rove, few of them are ready to start voting for Democrats, especially as socialists gain more traction among progressives. But they have lost hope that the GOP will turn back anytime soon to its historical values, which once included promoting free markets, free people, legal immigration and strong partnerships with allies in North America, Europe and beyond.
Today’s party leaders are instead much too comfortable with alternative facts, trashing fellow Americans who hold opposing views and bullying historical allies into submission.
French’s comments about Asian students were particularly ugly, but not exactly shocking given Trump’s past rhetoric about immigrants and refugees.
It’s fair to ask why Rove and others are objecting now. After all, Trump has taken the GOP in directions that have alarmed some mainstream Republicans and many other Americans for more than a decade.
Most of the never-Trumpers who spoke out in 2016 and for years after weren’t Democrats or liberals. They were old-fashioned conservatives and proud of it.
But they were ridiculed as RINOs (Republicans in name only) by the MAGA faithful and sometimes even directly insulted by the president himself. Most old-style Republicans fell in line, even as they cringed behind the scenes at Trump’s antics.
The Trump train is running out of steam
Establishment Republicans – think of them as the party’s mainstream when Bush was president and John McCain and Mitt Romney were the presidential nominees in 2008 and 2012 – may have gone silent, but they haven’t gone away. And they gain new allies every day that the war with Iran drags on and gas prices hover above $4 a gallon.
Trump’s disapproval rating is now at 50% or worse in deep red states such as Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Ohio.
It’s a brutal reality that Republican candidates nationwide must try to navigate. I suspect a crushing number of them will fail come November.
For a decade, the Republican Party fell into formation behind Trump – no matter how outrageous his actions or comments – because he did the one thing that surpasses everything else in politics: He won.
Trump delivered more than the White House in 2016 and 2024. Republicans became America’s dominant party, controlling Congress, the judicial branch and statehouses from Tallahassee and Austin to Des Moines and Columbus.
Even liberals’ death grip on the news media, higher education and the entertainment industry began to slip.
Conservatives were finally ascendant, thanks to Trump’s strange but winning mix of vision, acrimony, ego and force-of-nature energy.
But the Trump train is now running out of steam, and establishment Republicans, never fully comfortable with a mercurial president, are jumping off.
The days of winning are gone. And with them, much of the president’s support.
Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor with USA TODAY and former opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump is turning off lifelong Republican voters the GOP needs | Opinion
