For most of his adult life, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has been a Republican. He was a popular Republican, and for some time, many believed that he could and should run for president. It was assumed that he would have a solid chance to win the White House.
In a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria following the chaos at the Capitol building in Washington last week, Colin Powell said that he believed Republicans who could not clearly hold President Donald Trump accountable for a growing climate of anger and confusion to grow, and that what happened over time grew completely out of hand. According to Powell, these Republicans effectively “encouraged, at least, this wildness to grow and grow.”
He went on:
“They did,” Powell said. “And that’s why I can no longer call myself a fellow Republican.”
Does that mean that Powell now considers himself a Democrat, that he just switched parties? Not exactly. At least not yet. For now, in his own words, Powell describes himself as “not a fellow of anything right now.”
He elaborated:
“I’m just a citizen who has voted Republican, voted Democrat throughout my entire career and right now I’m just watching my country and not concerned with parties,” Powell told CNN.
Interesting. For now, Powell became so disgusted with Republicans who side too closely with Trump, at least for his tastes, that he no longer identifies with the party. He is not the first, and most likely will not be the last, prominent Republican to defect publicly from the party due to it's association with the most polarizing political figure in our lifetime.
For now, it feels like the Republicans are, once again, having an identity crisis. This has happened before, back in 2016, when it seemed that both major parties were going through similar identity crises. It seemed improbable then that Trump would win the battle for the Republican party's soul, although he seems clearly to have won. Now, with Republicans once again struggling to find their identity, it appears that Trump and his loyalists have the upper hand, and it will be difficult, if not virtually impossible, for the GOP to get past the automatic association that some people have with them of being the de facto Trump party.
As of right now, the Democrats are riding somewhat of a wave, and so they are gearing up for power, and not showing any signs of an identity crisis. Again, at least for now, the Democrats appear to be the party with the momentum. But that, too, can soon change, and almost did earlier in the presidential campaign, when once again, the pro-corporate, so-called mainstream Democrats banded together in an effort to keep Bernie Sanders from power. Many feel that they, too, can no longer identify as Democrats, so it is an interesting juxtaposition that we Americans find ourselves in politically.
If this is the beginning of the end of the Republican party, it just might lead to the end of the Democratic party, as well, at least as we have known them. In any case, it feels like we are on the edge of something big, where the traditional two party system is no longer really sustainable.
Below is the link to the article that I used in writing this blog entry, and from which I obtained the quotes used above:
‘I can no longer call myself a ... Republican,’ Colin Powell says after Capitol riot by Bailey Aldridge and Don Sweeney, January 10, 2021:
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