Prominent GOP Leader Announces Tuesday Resignation Over Trump

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As the 2020 presidential race continues to take shape, the Log Cabin Republicans — a national organization with local chapters across the United States of LGBT people who for whatever reason are Republican — have endorsed Donald Trump. Now, in protest, a member of their national board has resigned, insisting that there’s just no way that she can rectify the decision that the organization came to with basic principles of her own morality.

Remember, this isn’t some Democrat speaking who might be dismissed by Republicans as out of touch already — this is someone who across the board, presumably agrees with the Republican policy agenda. And in another addition to the list of national Republican leaders who break away — they can’t stand Donald Trump. Horn is a past chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

In 2016, the Log Cabin Republicans declined to offer a formal Trump endorsement after endorsing the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 and 2012. Jennifer Horn told The Washington Post:

‘There is no world where I can sit down at the dining room table and explain to my children that I just endorsed Donald Trump for president. It is contrary to everything that I have ever taught them about what it means to be a good, decent, principled member of society.’

In a letter to Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Robert Kabel and Vice Chairwoman Jill Homan, Horn cited Trump’s “regular verbal assaults against women, elected members of Congress, party members who do not agree with him… and his willingness to stoke racial anger and unrest in order to advance his own political ambitions” as reason for her break with the group.

In a piece published in the same publication last week, the Log Cabin Republicans cited an array of specific policies as reasons for their endorsement of Trump — which considering precedent, isn’t too unexpected. The Republican National Committee (RNC) itself has already formally thrown itself behind the Trump re-election campaign. Despite talk of more, there’s just one declared Republican presidential primary challenger to Trump in former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, who has barely been able to maintain double digit levels of support in only some polls. Horn has actually served as his campaign manager for a time.

Still, the Log Cabin Republicans cited points like Trump’s stated commitment to combating HIV and his administration’s worldwide push to decriminalize homosexuality. They noted that they oppose the Trump administration’s exclusion of openly transgender people from service in the U.S. Armed Forces, but insisted that point didn’t worry them enough to break with the president, quoting Ronald Reagan’s perspective that “80 percent my friend is not 20 percent my enemy” as backup. They also pointed to Trump economic policies like the tax cuts he enacted back in 2017 as something that supposedly benefits Americans, including LGBT ones, across the board.

While they embark on this campaign to gloss over the president’s behavior, he continues to stump against marginalized communities like their own time after time. It wasn’t long ago that he demanded women of color serving in Congress should “go back where they came from.” What would it take for these people to break with the president? Just because he hasn’t stuck to singling out LGBT people, does that mean his behavior is widely acceptable? Obviously not.

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