“I’m not leaving the Republican party… the Republican Party under Donald Trump is leaving me.”
“My name is Brock Cordiero. I’m from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. And I voted for Donald Trump both in 2016 and 2020. I became one of the vice chairs of Massachusetts for Trump 2020. I also helped run the social media aspect of the Trump campaign here in Massachusetts, and so I thought I was doing a service to my party and thus my country by supporting the president in 2016 and 2020.
“As a Republican elected official, I simply cannot vote for Donald Trump going forward due to his lack of leadership, his cowardice and his insurrection.
“So I do believe Donald Trump was responsible for January 6th. I absolutely believe that he had a failure of leadership to quell the insurrection, to use his influence among his MAGA supporters.
“I believe Donald Trump cares about one thing and one thing only, and that’s Donald Trump. I don’t believe he really cares for democracy. If you’re a candidate for president of the United States, and you were the President of the United States, even joking about being a dictator only for one day is a disgusting attitude. Donald Trump claiming that he’ll be a dictator on day one only, I can only imagine that if there’s a grain of seriousness in that comment, the scale of the damage that he could do on day one is unfathomable, and so I just hope that even an attempted joke that landed very badly, I hope that Donald Trump never has the opportunity to deliver that punchline for real.
“The past four to eight years have been a great embarrassment and humiliation to me as a Republican. It’s one of the reasons why on Super Tuesday, March 5th when we’re having the Massachusetts Republican primary, I’m not seeking re-election to my multi-term seat upon the Massachusetts Republican State Committee.
“I’m embarrassed by my party. I’m embarrassed by the MAGA movement taking over my party. It’s not the party that I admired as a child under Ronald Reagan. This is a party that I do not recognize anymore. The Republican Party is not my party anymore. I’m not leaving the Republican party, but to borrow the phrase of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party under Donald Trump is leaving me.”