Ex-Republican strategist pinpoints 'blazing, burning sign' that 'Trump is killing the GOP'

Donald Trump is "destroying" the Republican Party, and there's one clear sign, according to a former GOP insider.

Ex-GOP strategist Rick Wilson, who once said he might depose Trump in a lawsuit and force the president to explain his ties to the deceased child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, ahead of the weekend wrote a piece on Substack called, "Trump Is Destroying The GOP."

According to Wilson, "Trump is killing the GOP. And they know it."

As far as the sign is concerned, Wilson further wrote, "The 29 GOP retirements as of this writing are a blazing, burning sign on the wall."

"The trainwreck of polling on every front is leaving GOP consultants tearing their hair out. Trump’s recklessness isn’t 87-dimensional quantum string theory chess; it’s the twitching death spasm of political roadkill, a roadside possum that miscalculated how long it would take to cross the highway on a dark night," Wilson added. "Republicans keep insisting 2026 will be a 'referendum on the Democrats.' Sure. And my Beechcraft is a B-21 stealth bomber."

He continued:

"The 2026 midterms are shaping up as something much simpler and much more brutal: a referendum on Donald Trump’s reckless second-term presidency, and the GOP candidates chained to his ankle like a cinder block. Start with the one number every incumbent fears: approval. The NPR/PBS News/Marist poll in late January pegged Trump at 38% approve / 56% disapprove, with Americans twice as likely to strongly disapprove as strongly approve. That’s not 'polarizing.' That’s structural rot. And it’s the kind of rot that spreads down-ticket like black mold in the walls of the kind of roadside hotels Roger Stone is said to frequent."

He added, "Then look at the generic congressional ballot, the political equivalent of your check-engine light. Decision Desk HQ’s average has Democrats up about 4 points nationally (45.5% to 41.4%). Nine months out, a persistent gap like that is the sound of GOP strategists quietly pricing out 'career transitions' on LinkedIn."

He then broke some more bad news to Republicans, saying, "Now, here’s the part Republicans don’t want to hear: Trump isn’t just unpopular in the abstract. He’s unpopular because the country is living inside a rolling crisis factory where every lever he pulls seems to cause more harm, more pain, and more destruction."

"Trump sold law and order. He delivered murder and abuse of American citizens, violent spectacle, and the kind of enforcement theater that turns into national trauma," he added. "And it’s not just Trump’s sweeping policy failures. It’s down to basic credibility. A Quinnipiac national poll released this week found 61% of voters think the Trump administration has not given an honest account of the Alex Pretti shooting by federal immigration agents. Given Trump’s long reputation for a cavalier disregard for the truth, this shocks no one."

Wilson also said, "The political damage from moments like this isn’t confined to one incident; it metastasizes into a broader feeling that the President is going mad, that the government is out of control, that his Administration, from top to bottom, is unaccountable, and that his minions lie reflexively."

"That’s the definition of political friction. Every Republican candidate in a swing district will be asked: Do you support this? Do you excuse it? Do you defend it? And if they try to pivot to 'kitchen table issues,' the kitchen table is going to ask why federal agents are turning the country into a live-streamed stress test," he added. "Mike Lawler, a Trump fanboy who pretends to be an independent, tried to play this game with his constituents this week and got beaten like a rented mule by his own audience."

In his conclusion, Wilson wrote, "Trump is dragging the GOP toward 2026 the way a cat bats a priceless vase toward the edge of the table: with total confidence and no understanding of gravity. Republicans can either grab his wrist or stand there smiling and insisting everything is fine."

"Voters, however, have seen this movie before. And they know how it ends," the ex-strategist wrote. "And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it."

Read it here.