The GOP may be begrudgingly circling their wagons around their new presidential nominee, but this week’s Republican National Convention wasn’t exactly the picture of unity that Trump supporters or Republican leaders might’ve hoped for. With highlights like accusations of plagiarism, Ted Cruz growing a pair, and Trump giving the longest acceptance speech in at least four decades, the country has had plenty to discuss these past few days.
While Cleveland may be full of sycophantic glad-handing from conservatives hedging their bets in case Trump actually wins this thing, Twitter has proven to be another story entirely. And it’s not just liberals popping off about the Republican nominee.
We dove into the site to find the most salacious instances of GOP-on-GOP dragging. While these might not be the uproarious shade you’re used to, they’re still a sort of accomplishment when you consider the sources.
Tim Miller, Jeb Bush’s former communications advisor, no longer on a leash, went on the offensive:
In 2016 you can video chat customers in Hong Kong, & transfer $ instantly. Yet our nominee will attack globalism tonight as if it's 1930.
Ivanka was Dons confidante as he demeaned women, dog whistled to anti-Semites & proposed mass deportation of Hispanics. But hey, nice speech
Brandon Morse took a gif approach in airing his grievances. Moore is a writer for conservative political blog RedState.com, which features regular diarists from the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Meanwhile, at the #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/Vu51OuubrQ
Author, presidential scholar, and conservative political commentator Stephen F. Hayward pulled no punches during Trump’s lengthy speech on Thursday night.
My liver can't take much more of this.
Make America late for work again, with this long a speech.
Few went in on The Donald more than editor Bill Kristol from the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard. The political analyst was one of the forebearers of the #NeverTrump movement and he spent the entire week lobbing 140-character bombs at Trump:
It's food poisoning. https://t.co/nTY497XmPO
Watching the convention, you think: the GOP used to be the stupid party, but it was also a principled party. Now it's just the stupid party.
Why did Trump scream & yell? Perhaps he thinks it conveys intensity & energy & strength, ability to get stuff done. Cartoon manliness.
Fellow The Weekly Standard scribe Jay Cost was more succinct with his analysis:
If you're not a TV watcher, you could just sit down in front of a cozy fire. Same effect as being at #RNCinCLE. pic.twitter.com/6dscdO4x3b
Another conservative editor who took jabs at Trump was Rich Lowry from The National Review, which describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion." Lowry live-tweeted the convention, and by the looks of it, one can only assume he spent his time shaking his head in his hands between tweets.
"Donald Trump will execute..."--half expected a name there
With better, more disciplined writing and delivery, you could have taken these same themes and made them into a highly effective speech
A commercial break should be built in here so Trump can run to bathroom before starting second half of the speech
It should surprise no one that even some conservative women came out of the woodwork to take a swing at the unabashedly misogynist nominee. Bethany Mandel, a writer at leading conservative outlet The Federalist, had some words for Trump.
He did what every great leader does: He accused his opponent's fathers of murder, called their wives ugly.
If we're going to live under Donald Trump we all gonna need those drugs to keep flowing.
Oh god there's ten pages left. He's only 17 of 27 in.
Professionally funny people can be Republicans too, believe it or not. Drew Carey is one such person and even he couldn’t help take shots at Donald.
I like how there’s not gonna be crime anymore after @realDonaldTrump gets elected. #SoundsDoable #RNC2016 #RNCinCLe
There you have it. Not exactly the tea-spilling bouncy house of delight that was the #KimExposedTaylorParty, but give these conservative men and women some credit. They tried.
