Ex-President Donald Trump is continuing his feud with the Republican Party over their usage of his name in fundraising efforts, and on Tuesday, he publicly released a plea for his supporters to donate directly to his own political action committee instead of the GOP. This demand from Trump for his supporters to send their donations to him instead of established Republican Party institutions could foreshadow continued GOP infighting on the horizon, and Trumpism already helped drag the GOP into serious losses. Republicans didn’t just lose the White House with him at the top; they also lost the House and Senate.
Declining Trumpism is, of course, better for America, considering the destructive chaos of the Trump era. In a statement released by Trump’s political action committee, which is known as Save America, Trump commented as follows:
‘I fully support the Republican Party and important GOP Committees, but I do not support RINOs and fools, and it is not their right to use my likeness or image to raise funds. So much money is being raised and completely wasted by people that do not have the GOP’s best interests in mind. If you donate to our Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, you are helping the America First movement and doing it right. We will WIN, and we will WIN BIG! Our Country is being destroyed by the Democrats!’
“RINO” stands for “Republican in Name Only,” and it’s a pejorative that the former president has used in the past for his Republican opponents. Trump’s latest comments represent a continuing dangerous degree of existential fearmongering within the Republican Party. His claim that Democrats are supposedly destroying the country is, of course, a lie, but it’s the same kind of all-or-nothing, fight-or-flight nonsense that helped drive real-world violence like the January rioting at the Capitol. Trump continues to depict his opponents as existential threats, which is grossly cultish and dangerous.
In these particular circumstances, Trump’s team sent cease-and-desist letters to the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), demanding that they stop using his name for fundraising.
A recent fundraising email from the RNC read, in part, as follows:
‘President Trump will ALWAYS stand up for the American People, and I just thought of the perfect way for you to show that you support him! As one of President Trump’s MOST LOYAL supporters, I think that YOU, deserve the great honor of adding your name to the Official Trump ‘Thank You’ Card.’
The means of adding one’s name to the effort was through a donation. The grossly patronizing language of the fundraising plea makes the GOP’s continuing desperation crystal clear.
