New York Times columnist Charles Blow suggested that the Republican Party is the real "problem" in America and a "threat to our democracy" in an op-ed on Wednesday.

After Rep. Liz Cheney’s resounding defeat in the Wyoming Republican primary, several media outlets rushed to console or praise her, including Blow’s own paper. While Blow did not defend her as "a rock-ribbed Republican," he lamented that Cheney’s loss proves the modern GOP is "sufficiently obedient to Donald Trump and his quest to deny and destroy democracy."

"We must stop thinking it hyperbolic to say that the Republican Party itself is now a threat to our democracy. I understand the queasiness about labeling many of our fellow Americans in that way. I understand that it sounds extreme and overreaching. But how else are we to describe what we are seeing?" Blow wrote.

He argued throughout the piece that the election of Trump in 2016 signaled the opportunity for Republicans to "run headlong" into their "bigotries, intolerances and oppression" that were long kept in the closet.