Conservative, military leaders sound alarm on danger of reelecting Trump

A red tidal wave of support is announcing support for Vice President Kamala Harris and warning the nation of the threat posed by former President Donald Trump. Over the past week, nearly 250 Republican military leaders, legislators, conservative former federal judges, prominent lawyers and White House staffers who served in Republican administrations have rejected the GOP nominee and endorsed his Democratic counterpart in the race for president.

Among those offering their endorsements are dozens of officials who served in the administration of George W. Bush and on the campaigns of Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney — including Joe Brezny, the 2008 Nevada state director for Romney’s campaign.

In a letter published Monday, many of these patriotic Republicans warned that “another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions.”

They continued by saying that, “Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”

On Friday, a dozen lawyers who served in the White House administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush released a letter of their own, endorsing Harris because “we believe that returning former President Trump to office would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country.”

They described the election as presenting “a binary choice” in which “Trump is utterly disqualified.”

They join an already crowded list of Republican governors, members of Congress, state lawmakers and former Trump administration officials who are sounding the alarm about Trump and offering their support to Harris. That list includes former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye, former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.

Troye spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention, telling viewers: “I grew up in the kind of working family that Trump pretends to care about: conservative, Catholic, Texan. Those values made me a Republican and they’re the same values that make me proud to support Kamala Harris — not because we agree on every issue but because we agree on the most important issue: protecting our freedom.”

She spoke about how she “saw how Donald Trump undermined our intelligence community, our military leaders and ultimately our democratic process.” And how “being inside Trump’s White House was terrifying but what keeps me up at night is what will happen if he gets back there.”

She concluded her remarks by calling on her fellow Republicans to vote for Harris because “you aren’t voting for a Democrat; you’re voting for democracy. You aren’t betraying our party; you’re standing up for our country.”

U.S. Air Force veteran and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger also spoke at the DNC, arguing that “the Republican Party is no longer conservative. It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself.”

He went on to endorse Harris by saying, “I know Kamala Harris shares my allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy, and she is dedicated to upholding all three in service to our country. Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle of decency, and of fidelity to this nation.”

While the decision of Republican officials to turn on their party’s candidate and endorse a Democrat is remarkable and admirable, the most persuasive endorsements are coming from longtime military officials who are deciding to weigh in on presidential politics after decades of tradition of staying on the sidelines to serve their country regardless of which party occupies the White House. The threat to the nation and the world posed by Trump is so dire they feel obligated to speak up in service of democracy and freedom.

Gen. Larry Ellis, a highly decorated veteran who served under 10 presidential administrations, including serving as the commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command under George W. Bush, endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in his 45-year career. He said he is getting involved in politics and endorsing Harris because of the severity of the threat Trump poses to our nation, and the values he spent so many years fighting to defend. He also noted that it was “not a decision I take lightly, but one I believe necessary.”

This week also sees the launch of staunchly conservative Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster’s record of his time in the Trump White House, which brims with frightening accounts of Trump’s blinding ignorance, low malice and crazed behavior as it builds the case that Trump is unfit for office.

The GOP endorsements of a Democratic candidate hearken back to the election of 1800, made famous recently by the Broadway musical blockbuster “Hamilton.” In that election, some Federalists, concerned about the divisive leadership of John Adams and the generally radical direction of the Federalist party, endorsed Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, over their own party’s candidate. Notably, Jefferson’s victory marked the first peaceful transfer of power between parties in U.S. history — a hallmark of American politics that we hope to return to following Trump’s deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

We have long offered our condemnation of Trump and his MAGA acolytes as violent extremists. For the past eight years they have openly and brazenly defiled the Republican Party as they engaged in hateful fearmongering, conspiracy theories and “alternative facts.”

Now, Republicans across the country, including members of Trump’s own inner circle, are joining a growing chorus of voices imploring the American people to reject Trump and show his followers once and for all that their vile rhetoric and extremism will not be rewarded.

This is patriotism at its finest, rising up to defeat a man who despises democracy and the rule of law.

We hope you will join them, and us, in voting for decency this November.