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:
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.
Author, presidential scholar, and conservative political commentator Stephen F. Hayward pulled no punches during Trump’s lengthy speech on Thursday night.
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:
Fellow The Weekly Standard scribe Jay Cost was more succinct with his analysis:
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.
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.
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.
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.