Violence at U.S. Capitol is only the beginning of ‘Trumpism,’ says California Republican
Click the player above to hear the California Nation podcast interview with Mike Madrid.
“It is the Republican Party that stands as the most immediate threat to our institutions.”
Mike Madrid, a longtime California Republican operative, wrote these words in an op-ed about “defeating Trumpism” that he submitted to The Sacramento Bee over the holidays.
His words proved prescient.
On Wednesday, as we prepared his piece for publication, a violent pro-Trump mob attacked the United States Capitol in a failed effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election — and, essentially, overthrow the American government.
The coup failed, but Madrid said such violence is a sign of things to come.
“The defeat of Donald Trump was the end of the beginning,” said Madrid during an interview on the California Nation podcast. “We are just starting into this process. Violence will be characteristic of this political movement for the next two decades, and I feel a very strong obligation to speak out against it.”
Though Trump has been defeated at the polls, Madrid said defeating “Trumpism” — the angry populist movement sparked by his presidency — will be a lot harder. Madrid would know. The longtime Republican has lost friends and endured death threats for speaking out against Trumpism.
“I was physically threatened this morning,” Madrid said. “Somebody threatened to kind of come and teach me a lesson.”
In our conversation, Madrid talked about the rise of Trumpism and its effect on the Republican Party. But he also argued that populism also poses a threat to the Democratic Party, where he says an increasingly vocal left is adding to the country’s polarization.
“I think that there are some very, very dangerous elements to the American left and socialist populism,” Madrid said. “It’s not as xenophobic. It’s not as race-based. But it is as authoritarian, as anti-establishment and frankly, as anti-fact as much as it is on the right.”
Despite the Republican Party’s descent into Trumpism, Madrid remains a member of the GOP. In the 2020 election, he was a founding member of the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans opposed to Trump who worked to help elect Joe Biden.
“I’m still a member of the Republican Party, although there is very little that keeps me there,” Madrid said. “If I were to simply leave, and a lot of people have left, I think it weakens the opposition to populism. It weakens the opposition to nationalism and it weakens the potential reality of a return to classical conservatism. So, I remain Republican to this day.”
What is the future of the GOP if it remains in the grip of Trumpism?
“What has happened to the Republican Party in California is a preview of coming attractions to what will happen to the Republican Party in the rest of the country,” said Madrid, who lives in a state where the Republican Party’s extremism has made it irrelevant in statewide politics.
To hear the complete interview with Mike Madrid, click the player at the top of this story.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Violence at U.S. Capitol is only the beginning of ‘Trumpism,’ says California Republican."