Trump’s ‘words will surely kill again,’ warns co-founder of Lincoln Project

Former GOP strategist says Republican officeholders are ‘obedient soldiers in Trump’s cult of personality’

Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt has warned that the words of former President Donald Trump “will surely kill again”.

He also went after the press for its “profoundly stupid media coverage around the demise of the Trump blog”.

Mr Trump shut down his blog entitled “from the desk of Donald J Trump” after reportedly becoming enraged at its measly traffic and being told by allies that it made him look small and irrelevant.

Mr Schmidt slammed those who argue that Mr Trump’s election “loss, social media bans, and inability to sustain a blog are evidence of his decline, irrelevance and diminishment”.

The former Republican strategist said that many have posited that just saying Mr Trump’s “name out loud is what fuels and sustains the Trump threat. All we need do, they claim, is to treat him like Voldemort, so long as no one speaks his name out loud, no problem”.

“These people are fools and their delusions are dangerous for the survival of American democracy,” Mr Schmidt wrote on Twitter. “We are at an hour that requires people to wake up. Trump is powerful and he is a clear and PRESENT danger to our democratic society and national stability.”

Mr Schmidt has worked on the Republican campaigns of former President George W Bush, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former Arizona Senator JohnMcCain, who passed away in 2018.

Mr Schmidt said Mr Trump “has the ability to kill and destroy with the spoken word,” adding that the former president’s words, lies, “delusions and conspiracy theories have caused bloodshed”.

“That is what happened on January 6th. His words will surely kill again,” Mr Schmidt tweeted.

A mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol on 6 January in an attempt to stop the certification of the electoral college results and prevent President Joe Biden from taking office. Five people died in the riot, including a Capitol police officer.

Mr Schmidt argued that Mr Trump leads “an authoritarian movement” consisting of extremists such as the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, religious fanatics, and conspiracy theorists. He called the GOP the “vessel of this movement,” adding that its membership was united behind Mr Trump.

Calling Mr Trump the “presumptive nominee” for the Republicans in 2024, Mr Schmidt said that Republican officeholders are “obedient soldiers in Trump’s cult of personality”.

“This movement has become faithless to American democracy and it requires an almost Trumpian level of historical ignorance to not recognize it as one of the gravest threats the country has ever faced,” Mr Schmidt warned.

He reiterated the notion that Mr Trump’s failed blog is not evidence that his power is waning and that an indictment against him will not take away his influence or damage his movement. “It will simply hasten his candidacy,” he said.

Mr Trump and his family are being investigated by the New York Attorney General and the Manhattan district attorney.

“We are in the early years of a great struggle in this country that will last a long time provided the pro-democracy side can win elections because we are one away from seeing the autocratic side take power. They will not relinquish it again when they do,” Mr Schmidt tweeted.

He added that the Republicans were not “chastened” by the Capitol riot, but instead were becoming “more extreme”.

Mr Schmidt left the Republican Party in 2018 and announced in late 2020 that he was registering as a Democrat.

He tweeted that his former party was “on track to take back control of the House” in the 2022 midterms.

“The pro-democracy coalition won a great victory when Joe Biden became President. That victory has brought us some time but all the time in the world can’t cure a willful and delusional blindness to the great danger, resilience, ambition and authoritarianism of Trump’s movement,” he concluded.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Trump for comment.