Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — a frequent Donald Trump critic after the president-elect’s 2020 election loss — revealed why it’s “interesting” that critics tag him with the “RINO” acronym, which stands for “Republican In Name Only.”
“The reality is the entire Republican Party today is the RINO. They’re Republicans in name only,” said Kinzinger in an interview with Salon shared Saturday.
“They hold the title to the Republican Party, a lot of them still think they’re holding a legacy, but that’s exactly right, it’s gone.”
Kinzinger, the focus of a new documentary “The Last Republican” from “Hot Tub Time Machine” director Steve Pink, said “what it means now to be a Republican” is that you’re “driven by anger” and division.
“I think what they stand for is supporting culture war, rage, and one person, one personality, and that’s Donald Trump. Now, they’ll never admit it, but that’s the reality of it,” he said.
Kinzinger — one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — served on the House committee that investigated the insurrection.
He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election and, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention last year, declared that he was “putting our country first.”
Kinzinger, in a separate interview with Forbes, said he’s built “new alliances” in recent years and has realized he’s “probably closer to a Democrat now because of how the Republican Party has changed.”
“The Democrats are now the party that’s defending America’s role in the world, defending Ukraine, which I’m really passionate about,” said Kinzinger, who predicted that the GOP is “toast for awhile” as Trumpism won’t “survive past these four years.”
The former congressman, in his interview with Salon, said he thinks Trump is “already a lame duck” before noting that his control over his base like no other president could pose a “concern” for Republicans when his second term ends.
“If you think about George W. Bush toward the end of his second term, Republicans were falling away. That won’t happen with Trump,” Kinzinger said.
“All those Republicans who should be falling away will still have to face re-election even though Donald Trump doesn’t.”
Kinzinger said he doesn’t think the GOP can be “saved in the near term” but he hopes people don’t “give up on it.”
“Because the reality is that there’s probably forever only going to be two major parties in this country, and the Republican Party will be one of them. We can either write it off and lose elections, with such consequences as we’ve just had, or we can continue to fight inside,” he said.
