RINOs: Your Party is Well and Truly Dead (Part CVIII)
It's (Still) Not Coming Back
I was going to write a piece about The Donald’s still flailing/failing campaign but then While here in London for a television taping, I was on a panel with a young guy runs a group of ex-pat Trump supporters. He said this to me:
“We killed that [Republican] party and we’re proud of it.”
He had a big smile as he said it. When I tapped it into my notes to use later, his grin grew wider still.
So there it is, my Republican friends. Your party, my old party, is well and truly dead; as reported to me by one of the people who helped make it happen.
The Old School and The Old Stool
To me, the GOP we (thought we) knew was built on a three-legged stool.
Individual Liberty
Fiscal Responsibility
A Muscular and Moral Foreign Policy
Each of those supports has been hacked away by MAGA and its adherents. We should not mistake Donald Trump for any sort of ideologue; he’s an empty, bilious vessel that the likes of the Heritage Foundation, Opus Dei, and the Claremont Institute.
I’m Free, To Do What I Want…
Freedom and rugged individualism have been a foundational myth in the American right. Striking out into bear country with just your family and your rifle is how many of us still like to see ourselves. No overweening government, DC politicians, or un-elected judges can tell us what to do.
Their beliefs about how you and your family should live are banging on your front door. They want to see, know, and control what’s going on inside. Speaker Mike Johnson said he wants to legislate the bedroom. Aside from being weird, how is this at all ‘conservative?’
For MAGA, individual liberty is gone, in both in spirit and deed. When a Republican speaks of “states’ rights” he’s really saying that governors and legislatures will tell you how to live your life. To us they apply a religious and moral standard they themselves don’t pretend to care about. They hold their Bible in one hand and their victims in the other.
Drunken Sailors Got Nothin’ on These Guys
For decades, the GOP accused the Democratic Party of being ‘tax and spend liberals.’ Some of it might have been true, and it certainly rang true for tens of millions of American voters.
Financially, Trump’s Republican Party acts like he does: Spend lots of other peoples’ money, make sure your rich friends get to keep as much as they can, and let someone else worry about paying the bill.
When a Republican says they believe in ‘tax cuts’ they’re not talking about you. They’re talking about guys that already have plenty of money and offshore tax havens. They scream about the national debt, but have neither the desire nor the spine to actually cut spending of any kind. After 40+ years, they’re still holding onto the Voo Doo of ‘trickle down’ economics.
There’s no responsibility here. When in office, Trump, MAGA and today’s Republicans spend money like they’re using Matt Gaetz’s dad’s black card at 18 and Over night. The debt? They don’t care. You? They care even less about your financial well-being so long as you stay sufficiently angry at ‘those people.’
The City on A Hill
Remember when “character counted” and we loved America?
No more. Under MAGA, America is just as bad, if not worse, than other countries. We’re not so great, Trump snarls. Character means so little that a decade’s worth of lying, cheating, stealing, and couping aren’t enough to help Republican politicians grow a spine.
Just this week, Trump announced he’d lift all sanctions on Russia, and that it was our (America’s) fault that Putin invaded Ukraine. He and JD Vance are in hock to Vladimir Putin and Mohamed bin-Salman and God know what other foreign actors. Vance, to my knowledge, is the first vice presidential nominee to be endorse by the Russian foreign minister.
Like so much of their projection, “America First” means “America Last.” Trump will mortgage the American economy and national security for his own benefit. He would transform the US into the ‘sick man’ of global geopolitics for love letters and cheap foreign propaganda.
You’re Not Alone
More and more Republican leaders and voters are coming out in support of American democracy every day. Liz and Dick Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Geoff Duncan, Olivia Troye, and Denver Riggleman are just the tip of the iceberg. Dozens of local GOP officials, too, are crossing over to support pro-democracy candidates in races up and down the ballot.
The water is fine, I promise.
At Long Last…
My fellow (former) Republicans, you have six weeks to make your choice. I am not, and will not ask you to change your party registration, or take on board the tenets of the Democratic Party. I’m not asking you to be a full throated supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.
What I am asking you to do, is to look inside yourself, to your values and your faith. In the voting booth, I ask you to remember the words of Martin Luther:
“I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
If you want your Republican Party back, this version of it must be defeated at the ballot box in November, and for years to come. If the stench of Trump, MAGA, and its acolytes is too much, vote not your party, but your conscience.
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Please DO NOT miss
’s incredible article on the reach, depth, and breadth of the Opus Dei movement in American politics and government. You can read it here.
This country needs LOTS of Martin Luthers at this moment. Sadly, we have very, very few, even with the most obvious and sick and evil threat in our history waiting on November 5 with an R after his name.
Even more depressing, my evangelical Christian brethren are dug in more for Trump than just about anyone. It is breath taking, mind numbing and soul crushing. We have literally sold our souls and for what???? Abortion bans, but with all the chaos and cruelty and even death that have ensued? For more cruel and heartless judges who will turn down a death penalty appeal for a clearly innocent man? See the Supreme Court yesterday. For governors who will pardon the gun toting rich folks in Missouri, but let that same innocent man die and refuse to pardon him? We are sick right now folks. Our country is seriously mentally ill and even more, morally bankrupt. Christians, we have gained what we think is the whole world, but have lost our own souls. See Mark 8:36. I wlll NEVER understand this, never. As Luther said, God help us. We surely need it.
I do not and probably will not ever understand how one man can wreak so much damage.
But I guess if you look back in history there have always been men who thought they could sway formerly rational people to his movement. Savonarola in the Renaissance pretty much destroyed Florence. He was later deemed a heretic. Hopefully trump will be found guilty of his crimes, especially Jan 6 and suffer a similar fate.