Former GOP leader in Connecticut resigns from party: ‘I blame President Trump’

Michael London, a former member of the Trumbull Town Council in Connecticut, said he’s resigning from the Republican Party and blamed President Trump, calling him “the worst president our country has had — ever.”

In a op-ed published by the Hartford Courant on Friday, London wrote his decision to resign from the Republican party and register as an unaffiliated voter was “something that I never thought I would do.” 

London described himself as a “loyal member of the Republican Party for most of my adult life,” but he said the GOP “is no longer the party that I believed in all these years.”

“I blame President Trump for turning the Grand Old Party into a lame, extreme right-wing group of people unwilling or unable to see the truth. But Trump is not alone in causing my disillusionment,” he wrote.

“I have had it with the state and federal branches of the Republican Party that tolerated the president’s behavior. None of our GOP candidates for governor denounced Trump. None of the leaders of Connecticut’s GOP will speak out.”

{mosads} The former Republican went on to refer to Trump “as the worst president our country has had — ever.”

London listed a number of factors behind his assertion, including Trump’s policies on climate change, family separations at the border and Russia. 

London also wrote that his search for “redeeming qualities” within the president falls “woefully short.”

“He is almost dictatorial and he has severely hurt our standing in the international community. People around the globe are laughing at us,” London fumed. “His patriotism is really egotism.”

London said he was compelled to write the op-ed because he could no longer “ignore Trump’s lies and his verbal and physical abuse of women.” 

“Imagine the average man calling a woman a ‘dog’ in his workplace and watch how quickly he is fired,” London wrote, referencing Trump’s tweet earlier this month in which he referred to former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman as a “dog” after she released tapes from her time at the White House.  

“Disavowing my party is no easy thing,” he wrote. “But I can’t take it any more.”