US President Donald Trump wears a mask as he visits Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland on July 25, 2020. Photo: VCG

Some anti-Trump Republicans are becoming more active in protesting against the current US president with the election taking place in three months' time, attempting to put their party back on the right track, Chinese observers said, noting that the rare scenes of party members protesting against their candidate publicly shows an internal loss in American politics.

"Donald Trump, here's the message. We will vote. We will defend America. We will throw you and your failed cronies out of office," claimed the Lincoln Project, a leading anti-Trump organization in the Republican Party, through a video published on their YouTube channel on Friday.

In the past six months, the Lincoln Project, founded in December 2019, has posted more than 100 video advertisements on YouTube to present and mock the failures of the Trump administration, calling on people to help stop Trump's re-election.

For Trump and the Republican Party, the Lincoln Project's behavior could hint at "betrayal." But it is not only the Lincoln Project that has been "betraying" Trump. In the past few months, several influential political organizations have emerged, some deciding to support Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden rather than allowing for Trump to be re-elected.

"This shows an internal loss of US politics," Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday, adding that disaffection for Trump has been spreading to more socio-economic classes.

To keep their leadership in the senate, the Republicans need to please voters, of whom the majority are unsatisfied with Trump's performance. Therefore, Republicans have to keep their distance from Trump, Li said.

Sun Taiyi, an assistant professor of political science at Christopher Newport University, told the Global Times that differences in thinking and concepts have always existed inside the Republican Party, even though some members turned to "support" Trump on the surface after he took office as they believed contradictions between different parties became the principal issue. 

According to Sun, there are three kinds of people protesting against Trump inside the Republican Party: some think the party would do better to ensure Senate seats and give up the president's position in consideration of Trump's lower approval ratings; some cannot stand Trump "kidnapping and misleading" the entire party, so they hope to put the party back on the right track; the rest may have personal animosities toward Trump.

In terms of the effect that anti-Trump Republicans will have on the 2020 election, Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, told the Global Times that he thought the "betrayers" could hardly kick Trump out of office, but they might push some votes toward the Democratic Party instead.

"As long as the COVID-19 epidemic continues its unregulated spread and the American economy keeps declining, anti-Trump organizations will be more high-profile," Shen said. "Therefore, Trump's supporters will only be his base, which means his approval ratings will stay between 31 to 37 percent."

Trump's latest approval rating is 41 percent in late July, according to Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.

The split of the Republican Party has also drawn discussion from Chinese netizens. A video clip of the Lincoln Project was reposted on Sina Weibo, which asked voters to make a choice between Trump and the US.

"Do you have a better choice?" said a Sina Weibo user.

"We don't care about the US, but we hope Trump will be with us forever," said another user, mocking what Trump has done to the US.

"Lies are always lies. The American people are finally waking up," said a net user.