… says a former Republican Congressional staffer.

On Saturday, the website Truthout published a must-read “confessional” essayby a former “GOP operative”, who “left the cult”. Mike Lofgren, says the byline, “retired on 17 June after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate budget committees.” According to the Atlantic’s James Fallows, “Among people who have covered or worked in the national-security field, he is a familiar and highly esteemed figure. He spent 28 years as a Congressional staffer, mainly on budget matters, mainly in the defense-and-security realm, and mainly for Republican legislators.”

Lofgren’s piece is a searing, scathing, no-holds-barred polemical assault on the modern Republican Party: