For anyone looking for proof of the transformation of the Republican Party since Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, look no further than who is not attending the Republican nominating convention this week.
The men and women who were once the face of the Republican establishment — among them a former president, two vice presidents and the most recent presidential nominee not named Trump — are skipping the event, an acknowledgment of the extent to which the party has moved on from the days when it was known as the party of Ronald Reagan.
In many ways, their absence is hardly a surprise and underlines a transformation that has been clear for at least five years, if not longer. But because of the constrained nature of the Republican convention in 2020, held as the nation struggled with the Covid pandemic, this convention will be the first that provides see-it-before-your-eyes evidence that this is indeed the Trump Republican Party.
“This is a real watershed and shows the degree to which Trump has had a victory march in the party culminating with the platform, which is entirely Trump’s platform,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and a supporter of Mr. Trump.
George W. Bush, the former president, does not plan to be there. “He’s long since out of that game,” Freddy Ford, his spokesman, said of Mr. Bush, who is 78, Mr. Trump’s age, and who left the White House in 2008. “He has not attended a convention since he was a candidate.”
Neither will Dan Quayle, who served as vice president under Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, who died in 2018. Dick Cheney, the vice president under the younger Mr. Bush, is skipping the event, as is Liz Cheney, his daughter, a former member of Congress — and one of the leading Republican critics of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, the former Indiana governor who briefly ran against Mr. Trump for the nomination last year, was also not expected to be on hand after their public falling out.
Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2012, now a senator from Utah and a leading Trump critic, is not planning to attend. The party’s 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, died in 2018.
Paul Ryan, Mr. Romney’s running mate and a former House speaker, will not be there, although the convention is in his home state. Kevin McCarthy — who, like Mr. Ryan, was ousted as House speaker by the right-wing flank of Republican members of Congress — said he would attend, as did Mr. Gingrich.
Another former speaker, John Boehner, did not respond to texts asking if he planned to attend.
This establishment class of Republicans has been a target of Mr. Trump’s over the years; it seems fair to say its members would not be banging down the doors to attend. “They would feel uncomfortable,” Mr. Gingrich said. “They don’t want to come here and pretend they are for someone who they loathe.”
Delegates booed loudly on Monday when an image of Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader and a frequent Trump critic, appeared on a jumbo screen in the conventional hall.
“It tells you how much the world has changed,” said Mr. Gingrich, who will be one of the speakers at the convention. “It just doesn’t matter. They no longer have power in this party.”
The post Guess Who’s Not Coming to Milwaukee? Bush, Quayle, Pence, Cheney or Romney appeared first on New York Times.
