Adam Kinzinger’s Family Calls Him a “Disappointment to God” for Standing Up to Trump

Among the harshest critics of Representative Adam Kinzinger’s public break with Donald Trump are his own family members, based on a handwritten letter that the Illinois Republican received from 11 relatives after calling for Trump’s removal over the Capitol riot last month. “Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” they wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!” Written by Kinzinger’s cousin Karen Otto and signed by several others, some of whom recently disowned Kinzinger, the New York Times reports, the two-page letter shows the extent to which disavowing Trump is perceived as a personal betrayal among Republicans—in this case quite literally. In addition to the letter sent via certified mail to Kinzinger’s father so as to guarantee the congressman saw it, Otto reportedly sent copies to Republicans across Illinois. “I wanted Adam to be shunned,” she told the Times.

The letter, complete with Biblical citations, enumerated grievances, and gratuitous exclamation points, criticized the six-term congressman for going “against your Christian principles and [joining] the ‘devil’s army’ (Democrats and the fake news media).” In an apparent effort to illustrate how gravely Kinzinger had erred, the letter rattled off a cast of right-wing media figures whose respect he had lost, including Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Greg Kelly, and Rush Limbaugh. Kinzinger told the Times that the letter-writers in his family are beset by “brainwashing” from conservative churches and that while he “[holds] nothing against them,” he has “zero desire” to “reach out and repair that.” He also tweeted about the letter on Sunday:

Kinzinger is one of the GOP’s most outspoken Trump critics and was one of just three Republicans who voted both to impeach Trump and strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy-addled freshman from Georgia, of her committee assignments. He has been vocal about the need to remake the party post-Trump and has used media outlets to try and give shape to his vision—one laid out in a recent PAC video that the Times describes as proposing “something resembling an idealized version of George W. Bush’s party.” Such a restoration involves getting rid of the total fealty that defined the last four years and has leeched into the post-Trump era. 

In making his case as the anti-Trump Republican, Kinzinger has, unsurprisingly, angered voters and officials, including those in his district. “If you want to vote as a Democrat, vote as a Democrat,” Richard Reinhardt, a 63-year-old retired mechanical engineer, told the Times. “Otherwise, if you’re a Republican, then support our president.” John McGlasson, the committee member who represents Kinzinger’s district, said he had been “insulting with his comments” since January 6. According to the Times, Kinzinger is still weighing whether he will change his party affiliation and said he’ll know by the end of the summer if leaving the GOP is necessary—but said he’s “going to fight like hell to save it first.”

The congressman is not the only member of his party facing blowback for turning against Trump following the Capitol Hill riot. Six of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the Capitol attack are now being punished for it at home, Business Insider reports. Among them is Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, who was censured by the Louisiana Republican party’s Executive Committee in a unanimous vote on Saturday, hours after the trial concluded. “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” Cassidy, who recently won reelection for a six-year term, said in a statement Saturday. Earlier in the week, before Cassidy had even voted to convict, the Republican Party of East Baton Rouge Parish, his hometown chapter, unanimously voted to censure him—merely for allowing the impeachment trial against Trump to move forward.

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