Adam Kinzinger Declares Death of Republican Party

Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, declared the death of the Republican Party on Friday following this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC).

The RNC kicked off earlier this week in Milwaukee where former President Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP’s nomination for the 2024 election delivering an over 90 minute speech. The four day event featured various speakers including Trump’s family members, GOP officials and candidates, as well as entertainers, celebrities, and industry leaders.

Following the convention, Kinzinger, a vocal Trump critic who represented Illinois until 2023, took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize the convention and to declare the death of the GOP.

“The convention spoke loudly: the GOP is dead. Now that we know it, time to push hard,” the former congressman wrote, sharing a link to his Substack page in which he further wrote about the convention.

In his Substack titled, “The Convention Spoke and Told Us: The GOP is Dead,” Kinzinger explained various examples of how the RNC demonstrated that Trump has succeeded in turning the GOP into a “cult of personality.”

“It was called the Republican National Convention, but in fact, it had nothing to do with the GOP most of us once knew. Gone were the party’s serious policy debates and platform planks. In their place was a celebration of Donald Trump, who has succeeded in converting one of the country’s two major parties into a cult of personality,” the former congressman wrote.

In his Substack, Kinzinger noted how Trump picking Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate and having former White House adviser Peter Navarro speak at the convention only exacerbated the “death of the old GOP.”

“The death of the old GOP was signaled at the start of the week when Trump chose the chameleon JD Vance as his running mate. With the choice of Vance, Trump indicated that he has no concern about appeasing the old-style GOPers, who would have been reassured if he had chosen a Marco Rubio or a Tim Scott as a running mate,” Kinzinger wrote.

Vance was announced earlier this week as Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election. In the days following his announcement, Vance’s positions on key political and cultural issues have garnered national attention and intense scrutiny from Democrats. Vance has positioned himself as a staunchly conservative senator and close ally to Trump since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.

However, years before launching his political career, Vance was a staunch Trump critic, frequently condemning the former president during his first term in office and voting for independent candidate Evan McMullin in the 2016 election.

Meanwhile, Kinzinger added: “Further evidence that the convention was dominated by extremists came when Trump’s former White House advisor Peter Navarro raced to appear at the podium just hours after his release from federal prison. In a rant filled with falsehoods, he riled up the crowd…Because it is now the Trump Party, the crowd in Milwaukee lapped up Navarro’s message of fear which, after all, is the gateway to rage.”

Navarro, who was in custody for four months for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, took the stage convention the day he was released from prison as he discussed the need for control or else people like “me and Steve Bannon are in prison” and they “control the rest of us.”

Bannon began his prison sentence in Connecticut on July 1 for also refusing to cooperate with the January 6 investigation.

Meanwhile, Kinzinger warned that the fight against Trump is not lost as he urged traditional Republicans and independents to “gather our courage and energy” to fight against him.

“I won’t hide the fact that I grieve the old GOP and fear the cult of Trump. I am equally concerned, though, by Democrats who are shrinking from the fight, concluding that Trump’s election is inevitable. I would say that given a remnant of traditional Republicans remains, and independents must be turned off by a Trump who wants to be emperor. It’s time to gather our courage and energy. The fight against him is not lost,” he wrote.

In an emailed statement to Newsweek on Saturday afternoon, the Republican National Committee criticized Kinzinger’s career and doubled down on its support for Trump.

“The only thing that’s dead is Adam Kinzinger’s political career, which has largely amounted to getting on his knees on CNN and debasing himself to carry water for Joe Biden and Democrats – the same Democrats who gleefully redistricted him out of Congress. Unified behind President Donald J. Trump and his vision to Make America Great Again, the GOP is going to keep doing something Kinzinger will never experience on his own: winning,” committee spokesperson Kush Desai said.

This comes after Kinzinger made his support for President Joe Biden official in a post to X in June.

“As a proud conservative, I’ve always put democracy and our Constitution above all else. And it’s because of my unwavering support for democracy, that today, as a proud conservative, I’m endorsing Joe Biden for re-election,” he said in a video.

However, the former congressman’s endorsement of Biden drew mixed reactions on social media.

“Adam Kinzinger is a former Republican Representative who investigated January 6th. He knows Trump is awful and a threat to the country. Today he endorsed Joe Biden,” posted the X account @PatriotTakes.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded to the endorsement and wrote on X: “Oh look, Kinzinger finally came out of the closet. As usual, we knew all along, so not a surprise and none of us care.”

Update 7/20/24, 5:47 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Republican National Committee.