New Book on Republicans Who Stood Up to Trump

When “Anonymous” wrote an op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” in the New York Times in 2018, it made headlines nationwide.

In October 2020, he revealed himself to be Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, who was now campaigning against Trump. He called the Trump family separation policy a “sickening display of bad judgment” and “one of the most disheartening and disgusting things I’ve ever experienced in public service.”

Taylor is one of the few Republicans to stand up against Trump, showing exceptional courage and independence.

Why have so few Republicans stood up to Donald Trump? What has happened to the GOP, where unquestioning Trump loyalty is now more important than traditional conservative values?

Author Kristen Monroe offers an analysis of today’s GOP mindset and why only a handful followed their consciences. Her new book, “Politics, Principle and Standing Up to Donald Trump: Moral Courage in the Republican Party,” was published this week. (Ethics International Press Ltd, UK)

456 pages. Hardcover: $112. Paperback: $38

Almost no Republicans have stood up against Trump, with the exception of:

• Arizona US Senator Jeff Flake.
• Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project.
• Utah US Senator Mitt Romney
• Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney
• Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger

Monroe, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, provides insights into courage in politics and a new analysis of the Trump phenomenon, showing why re-electing him is harmful to democracy.

• “People ask why I stood up to Trump. I’ve seen firsthand how great a threat Trump poses. How he’s coarsened political life, legitimizing a politics of anger and pitting us against one another. (Monroe does) an excellent job of detailing how this happened and why it’s important that Trump never again hold office.” – Anthony Scaramucci, ex-Trump communications director
• “Brilliantly profiles the moral courage of Republicans who stood up to Trump’s desecration of basic institutions and processes of American government. Americans who believe in preserving our founding principles should read this book.” — Richard Painter, Chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush
• “As someone who personally experienced the consequences of standing up to Trump, this book is a crucial reminder that upholding democratic values and ethical principles against the tide of authoritarianism transcends party.” — Alexander Vindman, former National Security Council officer who flagged the call between Trump and President Zelenskyy leading to Trump’s first impeachment

Monroe is the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Politics at UC Irvine and founding Director of its Ethics Center. She is a political psychologist best known for her prize-winning work on altruism, moral choice and the engagement of science, ethics and politics. A Pulitzer Prize nominee, she has written more than 20 books.

Republican complicity

Despite Donald Trump’s many legal and moral abuses, most Republican Party leaders continue to support him. Why? How can we explain Republican complicity?

The motivation driving these powerful political leaders’ fear, self-interest, and lack of moral fiber is less interesting than a related question: What propelled the moral courage of the few traditionally conservative Republicans who refused to go along with Trump and his obvious lies?

How can we explain why some Republicans followed their consciences while many others did not? This is the topic of this book. Analyzing in-depth interviews, public speeches, journals, documents, and other data from dedicated Republicans – — lends insight into both what drives moral courage and the double-edged sword aspect of moral courage in politics, in which every act of moral courage is also a complex act of betrayal.

• Senators McCain, Romney, and Flake
• Representatives Kinzinger and Cheney
• Republican stalwarts Rick Wilson
• Press Secretary Anthony Scaramucci.

Flake excerpt

Trump has coarsened political life, expanding the boundaries of acceptable political behavior in ways that damage our civic culture. As Flake said, in announcing his retirement from the United States Senate, “Somebody needs to stand up and say, ‘This is not our party; this is not normal.’ “Senator Jeff Flake, 2016

“When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do because of political considerations because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseam, when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of our institutions and our liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.” (10/24/2017 Flake speech to the Senate)

Wilson Excerpt

“I will not bow to these people because I believe what they represent is an authoritarian future that is statist, which is violent, that is cruel. It is not based on anything regarding conservatism. It is based on reducing the liberty of Americans across the board, and it will start as it has with women; it will move to the LGBTQ community. It will expand and expand and expand, all in the guise of preventing this catalog of imaginary demons from taking over the country.”

Rick Wilson, Interview with Kristen Monroe, July 22, 2022

“I had been concerned as early as 2010 that the limited government, individual liberty, constitutional loyalty party that I grew up in had been replaced by a party that was markedly anti-immigrant, increasingly anti-woman, and that had had a tonal change from advocating for individual liberty to trolling the liberals. I realized there could be a terrible dark chemistry with Trump, and it could break the party. I opposed it starting in 2015.”

Rick Wilson interview with Kristen Monroe, July 22, 2022

“The disease of Trumpism has consumed the Republican Party and put the entire conservative movement at risk.… It has been hijacked by a bellowing, statist billionaire with poor impulse control and a profoundly superficial understanding of the world. The blazing, white-hot embrace of actual, honest-to-God stupidity has been as contagious as smallpox and as fatal as Ebola.”

Rick Wilson, in his book Everything Trump Touches Dies, August 7, 2018

McCain Excerpt

The last book by McCain, written as McCain knew he was dying, is a moving statement outlining how his key identity – as an American – means he must stand up and be counted in the fight to make all people free, with equal justice and liberty, which are part of our natural right as human beings.

“Before I leave, I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations. I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. I want to urge Americans, for as long as I can, to remember that this shared devotion to human rights is our truest heritage and our most important loyalty.”