When former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham dropped multiple bombshells about her former boss while promoting her new book, it got me thinking about a question posed by a colleague recently. What happened to Republican political operatives?
Specifically, my fellow writer wanted to know why so many center-right Republican operatives fell in line with the path set by former President Donald Trump?
These are not the true-believers or local activists we were talking about. Many denounced Trump as a charlatan and danger to the democracy during the 2016 presidential primary. They worked for mainstream candidates like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or John Kasich. Within Colorado they regularly lined up against the most extreme elements of the state GOP, desperately trying to present more palatable solutions and electable candidates.
So how did they end up fully embracing Trumpism? What happened over the course of the past five years that led many of the professional “establishment” Republicans to begin parroting the Big Lie and spewing the violent rhetoric of insurrectionists?
Money. Cash. Moolah. The all-mighty dollar.
