After the Republican National Committee accepted the resignation of its Finance Chairman Steve Wynn once a salacious story of his sexual predation and misconduct was published in The Wall Street Journal, a former spokesperson for the RNC attacked the party leadership with a brutally honest tweet.
Doug Heye, the communications director of the RNC from 2010 until 2014 saw this tweet from CNN White House Correspondent Abby Phillip detailing the entirety of the RNC’s announcement of Wynn’s departure, along with some relevant comments by Phillip herself, and felt compelled to add his own opinion of the party’s less than stellar communications strategy.
This is the RNC statement on Steve Wynn:
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: "Today I accepted Steve Wynn’s resignation as Republican National Committee Finance Chair."
It makes no mention of:
– all the money he donated to the RNC
– the sexual assault allegations against him— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) January 27, 2018
The RNC chair’s statement re Wynn is the very definition of “weak sauce.”
I was tougher on the committee when the finance dept had a dumb PowerPoint comparing Harry Reid to Scooby-Doo.
A female chair can’t say “The RNC stands with women”?! No doubt the comms shop got rolled. https://t.co/vN83oMkRqB
— Doug Heye (@DougHeye) January 27, 2018
While it must be painful for the RNC to see its own former staffers criticizing them for their inadequacies, it does demonstrate the impossible position that the Republican party finds itself in as it tries to defend a President accused of equally abhorrent sexually offensive behavior while not alienating 50% of the population by harboring an accused perpetrator of sexual assault as their chief fundraiser.
The rot in the Republican party in terms of morally reprehensible conduct starts at the top, and no amount of sweeping the inconvenient and unpopular truth under the carpet will change the fact that the GOP not only routinely tolerates the kind of behavior that prior to the Trump administration would be grounds for permanent excommunication, but goes out of its way to excuse it, downplay it, and ignore it.
It’s good to see that at least a few of the old guard Republicans still have enough of a conscience to call out the party leadership for their version of extreme hypocrisy. It’s a shame that the vast majority would rather enable Trump and his destructive agenda than display any sort of principles whatsoever.
