Powell envisioned moving the GOP ‘close to the spirit of Lincoln.’ It

His vision for the Republican Party, however, never materialized. Instead, it swiftly and surely moved toward Donald Trump’s political worldview, a party warning of immigrants replacing White Americans, one wary and sometimes mocking of international engagement and willing to embrace a populism that has divided the nation. Powell, the hero of the 1991 Persian Gulf War who once was heralded as the next Dwight D. Eisenhower, became an outlier in the party.