“I’m a lifelong Republican,” said Mesa Mayor John Giles as he stood on the stage at the Democratic National Convention. ” So I feel a little out of place here. But I’m more at home here than I am in today’s Republican Party.”
On a day the DNC roll call for the second day had big ticket speakers like Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Doug Emhoff and Bernie Sanders, some others like John Giles stood out all the same.
They are among Republicans who have jumped across the aisle to support the Democratic Party’s nominee.
John Giles was one of them. Another Trump voter, Kyle Sweetser was another. ” I voted for Trump not once, not twice, but three times.” This time, he’s voting for Kamala Harris.
Then there was Stephanie Grisham, who as Trump’s former Press Secretary, saw him from close quarters. ” I wasn’t just a Trump supporter. I was a true believer. I was one of his closest advisors,” she told the convention.
“The Trump family became my family. I spent Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving all at Mar A Lago. I saw him when the cameras were off. Behind closed doors, Trump mocks his supporters. He calls them basement dwellers,” she said.
As his former Press Secretary, she had a ringside view of what happened inside and outside the Oval Office. Stephanie Grisham said Donald Trump has no empathy, morals or fidelity for the truth.
After what happened on January 6, 2021, she had had enough. “I got skewered for never holding a White House press briefing. It’s because unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at that podium and lie. Now here I am, behind a podium, advocating for a Democrat. That’s because I love my country more than my party.”
John Giles didn’t mince his words either. “Trump doesn’t know the first thing about public service. Like a child, he acts purely out of self interest. We all need an adult in the White House. And we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have one. I have an urgent message for the majority of Amercians who, like me, are in the political middle. John McCain’s Republican Party is gone and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”
