George Conway Says Trump Turned GOP Into ‘A Mob Organization’ and Sarah Palin Was MAGA’s Canary in a Coal Mine
George Conway believes that an authoritarian MAGA mentality existed in the Republican Party before Donald Trump — and some of the clues lie with Sarah Palin.
During Wednesday’s “Mehdi Unfiltered” podcast, Conway, a former Republican and The Lincoln Project co-founder, discussed with host Mehdi Hasan the through-line from Palin to Trump and the MAGA signs that existed back when she was tapped to be John McCain’s vice presidential running mate in 2008.
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“Barack Obama once said that there’s a straight line from Sarah Palin to Donald Trump,” Hasan said. “The appointment of Sarah Palin – that was a precursor to Trump.
“I think it was one of the canaries in the coal mine,” Conway agreed.
Conway also said he was surprised how fast the GOP moved away from “small C conservative” ideals under Trump, saying it was shocking that an outsider like Trump could come in and take hold of the party so quickly.
“I didn’t think that a fringe of the party would take over and turn the party into basically a statist — a statist, government-expanding government,” he added. “It’s basically turned it into a mob organization. That was inconceivable to me.”
Conway admitted that he got it wrong when it came to the president. He thought that despite Trump being an egomaniac he would be able to be moderated in the office by everyone else around him. What he did not account for was Trump’s “bad instincts” always winning out.
“There is just a rotten core in there,” Conway said. “He’s truly evil, and from a psychological standpoint, he’s a narcissistic sociopath … People do manipulate him, but you can’t control him. And in the end, the bad instincts always win out and they get worse.”
Watch the full interview below:
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