Reed Galen and John Weaver

Opinion contributors

Last month, along with our brothers and sisters in arms, we launched The Lincoln Project. Our mission is simple: Ensure Donald J. Trump is a one-term president. Our leaders and members are Republicans, Democrats and independents — but all share the core belief that in these times, country must come before party.

In addition to defeating Trump in November, we’ve demonstrated that we will hold to account Republican officeholders who have abandoned their Article I responsibilities and oaths of office in favor of this corrupt president.

The president’s acquittal at his impeachment trial has reinforced the key component of our effort: Defeating this cultish GOP was, for us, the only right decision. Careerism and cowardice by GOP leaders have allowed Trump to hijack the Republican Party and transform it into his value-less image. We can’t do much about the cowardice, but we can have an impact on their careerism by helping our Democratic allies defeat them in November.

Defending indefensible actions

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, alone in his party, eloquently presented the case for convicting the president. History will be kind to him and, whether they realize it or not, all Americans are indebted to him for his courageous act.

But the outcome of Trump’s trial was a foregone conclusion. Republicans made that clear from the beginning, and then tied themselves in legendary rhetorical knots to ensure that Dear Leader sees them as appropriately loyal and vigorous in their defense of his indefensible actions.

More frightening, though, is that the behavior of these senators has brought into stark relief Trump's far-reaching effects on the Republican Party. What the president, his sycophants and hangers-on have done is no less than shred a once broad and popular coalition of voters that consistently won national, state and local elections.

The three traditional legs of the GOP’s belief system — strong and cogent national defense, fiscal responsibility and respect for individual rights — have been swept aside in service of a orange-haired egotist, one who demands total loyalty and deference while offering neither to his followers.

Why do political parties exist? In the American context, they provided the intellectual, ideological and organizational infrastructure to provide solutions to the myriad problems that we as a nation faced in the past, and those with which we still contend today.

But Trump’s GOP offers neither intellectual heft nor ideological stability. If a political party has neither a cogent belief system, nor a program for allowing Americans to live their best lives as they see fit, that party is simply a gang.

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After all, what is a gang? It is an organization that utilizes fear and influence to achieve power, territory and financial gain for a small group of people. At whose expense? Whoever gets in their way or those from whom they can extract the appropriate commodity — be it loyalty, money or votes. If there’s a better description of Trump’s Republican Party, we haven’t heard it.

Our Republican principles are gone

For people like us, who’ve spent decades working to elect leaders such as Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, this GOP is not only disappointing, it also is a crushing blow to the type of politics we attempted to practice. The core tenets of those we helped elect were a positive and optimistic view of how to advance the country first, and to make the American experiment as broad, open and accessible.

Those principles — leadership rooted in doing better tomorrow than we did yesterday or are doing today — are gone from the Republican Party. We launched The Lincoln Project not because we woke up and said we believe Democrats have a better vision for the republic, but rather because we must stanch the political bleeding in this country. We are committed to working with the Democrats because of our joint desire to protect the Constitution.

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As 2020 unfolds, The Lincoln Project will demonstrate two things: First, Trump’s fundamental unfitness for office and, second, why defeating him and his army of sycophants is the most immediate and effective thing Americans can do to begin writing our new history.

Just as tomorrow is promised to no one, our future is not preordained. It is up to all of us, Republicans, Democrats and independents, to take a stand in November. We must hold the line against what Trump and his enablers would do to this grand democratic laboratory we call “America.”

Reed Galen, an independent political consultant and adviser to The Lincoln Project, worked for President George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before leaving the Republican Party in 2016. John Weaver, a national political consultant and Lincoln Project adviser, worked for President George H.W. Bush, Sen. McCain and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Follow them on Twitter: @reedgalen and @jwgop