"But I'm not surprised by Trump's rise, and I think the entire party has only itself to blame," Vance texted, according to his former roommate, state Rep. Josh McLaurin (D-Georgia). "We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people) or a demagogue would. We are now at that point."
"Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect," Vance said, according to McLaurin. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How's that for discouraging?"