Since Trump began his absorption of the Republican Party, a transformation in the GOP that began decades ago has accelerated to a radical level. And signs suggest that it’s becoming an apocalyptic death cult (figuratively speaking, at least, and maybe literally).

With the torrent of draconian moves to obliterate core agencies and structures of our government — with nary a peep of protest from any current Republican official — we now clearly see the path we’re all on.

The old Republican Party is dead and gone and democracy itself is on life support.

Many of the telltale signs leading to this point have been widely discussed individually. Let us consider some of these in aggregate and as evidence of the demise of the old GOP.

Republicans have always proudly claimed to be in the party of:

• Family values. Yet, they’ve twice elected to the presidency a man who has a long history of philandering (including having an affair with a porn star shortly after his wife gave birth to their son), in addition to his multiple marriages and his assortment of other sex-related scandals going back decades.

• Fiscal conservatism. Yet, Trump — in his first term and with wholehearted GOP support — added $7.8 trillion to the national debt, primarily through tax cuts that favored the ultra-rich.

• Law and order. Yet, Republican leaders have managed to remain mute (except to criticize law enforcement officials) when confronted with facts related to a wide array of serious crimes committed by their leader, both well before he first became president and afterward.

Above all, the GOP has always emphatically styled itself to be the one true patriotic party and stalwart defender of our democracy. And yet, Republican officials remained silent when Trump — on multiple occasions — displayed extreme carelessness regarding classified information. They’re still silent as he continues to repeatedly disparage and alienate our allies and to flirt with our primary adversary.

Most recently, they are cravenly supporting his demonstrably unqualified and/or highly suspect nominees to key Cabinet positions. These people all have high potential for causing irreparable damage to the programs and agencies they’ll oversee, resulting in consequences that will span the globe. (This is where a literal aspect of the death cult concept begins to overlap with the figurative.)

Consider two of these Cabinet picks that will have direct bearing on life and death matters.

Marco Rubio, who is now secretary of state,  has jumped enthusiastically on the Musk/Trump juggernaut to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID). USAID was established by Congress in 1961 and literally saves lives by providing food and medical support to millions of people in underdeveloped nations around the world.

(Note: Aside from the dire reality posed by this termination of aid, there’s another factor to recognize. This drastic departure from what’s been a key element of U.S. foreign policy is a huge propaganda gift to Putin and other dictators who’d like nothing better than to see America’s standing in the world diminished. Which will precipitously happen, especially when people in large numbers begin to die.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  is now head of Health and Human Services. He has no medical credentials and has espoused a number of unfounded medical conspiracy theories — particularly about vaccines. (In 2019, as chair of an anti-vax organization, he headed a “natural experiment” to see what would happen over time after a measles vaccination program in Samoa was suspended. The result? Eighty-three people, mostly young children, died of measles.)

He’ll now oversee Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

Looming over all of this, of course, is the impending ultimate catastrophe: profound climate change. The U.S. is not alone in dragging its feet toward solving this dire challenge. Most of the other industrialized nations share in this failure. However, having our country abdicate its leadership role in this emergency (again) will only serve to hasten the arrival of the point of no return for life on Earth as we know it.

So, what to do? If there ever was a time to stand up and speak out, this is it.

A loud and sustained groundswell of rebuke from everyone who has had enough of these traitors to the American ideal and to the Constitution may be our only salvation.

As Margaret Chase Smith — a true Republican patriot (and purported hero of Sen. Collins) — once said: “Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous as speaking irresponsibly.”