By Mike Weland
Publisher
No one predicted, just eight years ago, the depths to which the Grand Ol’ Party of this proud nation would sink during and since the one term of President Donald John Trump. There was no soothsayer shouting from the rooftop that ere long we would see, in this nation founded on the ideals of freedom, liberty and equality, such a turning away from decency and common sense.
Oh, sure, there were signs. The rumblings of the Tea Party, the embrace of “conservatism” as epitomized by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. The slow change of focus from public service to serving the party.
But who warned us of the depths to which our party would descend alongside Trump down that golden staircase on June 16, 2015?
No one. And worse is that now, two years shy of a decade later, what had been politically unthinkable on the morning before that fateful escalator ride and for all our party’s years before has become not only normal, but expected … and even respected … by so many.
So many of our citizens clamor ever more loudly for more disenfranchisement, more hate, more regression … using words twisted deliberately and maliciously from their original and inspiring definitions, words such as “conservative,” “liberty” and “freedom” to give credence to fallacies spouted by grifters.
We live in a nation where close to half the population reveres a craven and contemptible bully, an egotistical narcissist who has never asked or cared to know what he might do for his country, but rather what he could take from it for himself.
That bully stands to be the Republican Party’s nominee and he has already promised a presidency like no other if he’s elected again; armies in our city streets, mass deportations, retribution, an end to our constitution.
Win or lose, he and his MAGA faithful are going to try to burn down the house.
The bad news is that he has the wherewithal to do it; the red hats in the streets standing back and standing by, the loyalist sycophants in offices great and small to grease skids from sea to shining sea, the power brokers in high places with money to burn and a dystopian agenda to push and a propaganda machine that would make Goebbels green with envy.
Listen to Idaho’s very own Senator Mike Crapo, in a press release issued just this morning, “Today I add my voice to the growing number of people standing behind Donald Trump because we know he will put America and Americans first. Americans want a strong country — one that receives respect abroad and helps maintain peace and order throughout the world; one with safe communities, where our children can grow into great citizens who have access to reliable, good-paying jobs; one with secure borders where the rule of law is respected; one that provides opportunities for all to reach for the American dream. We need to regain security of our borders and establish safe, legal immigration; bring back pride in our country’s military strength; and return to a smaller federal government as set out in the Constitution. It is time for a change from the chaos, difficulties and unrest we have experienced during the Biden Administration.
“During the Trump Administration, we had one of the strongest economies in generations: lowest unemployment rates in 50 years, growing wages with record tax receipts, millions of new jobs, and median income at an all-time high. President Trump grew our stagnant economy, restored our military strength, dramatically reduced federal regulations and strengthened our borders. I stand with Donald Trump and pledge to help him get back to our country’s core values and aspirations.”
Oh my, Senator … Is your memory that poor or are you truly that gullible?
The good news is that there are still good, common sense Republicans not deluded by the oft-repeated lies. Republicans who take seriously their oath to uphold, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and who are dedicated to serving the interests of the constituents who elected them, the role of a legislator and public servant in a democracy, rather than to enforce the ideals and morals of a political party, which is fascism.
Republicans who agree it is better to stand now and defeat at the polls the radical faction of their party that now poses the most grave and credible threat to our constitution, and so to save it. Ready to then stand up to whatever Trump and MAGA conniption fits ensue, which, in all likelihood, will be few and fleeting; bullies are good at intimidation and bluster, but lacking in courage or conviction.
The bad news is that those good Republicans can no longer do it themselves.
We knew who Donald Trump was a decade ago; a born-to-privilege grifter, a user, a liar and self aggrandizing loser. Our first inclination when he said he was running was to laugh. Somehow we gave him four years in our nation’s highest office to rise to the position. Instead he started digging and he still hasn’t reached bottom. He is not and never has been fit to serve the public trust or be trusted.
Those sensible Republicans want just one more chance to do what they know is right and they now have it, but it’s one chance only and it will be bitter.
They must support Joe Biden for President.
They must call out the lies of their radical brethren and speak truth about the Trump/GOP smears on our president, tell the truth about the farcical hearings and inquiries to find dirt on Joe and Hunter and the Biden crime family.
Give Joe some credit: he’s the only president in U.S. history forced to carry out the formidable duties of his office incessantly beset by a rabid 215-pound orange golfer clinging rat-like to his neck, the most vicious and vindictive predecessor in the history of the American presidency. Joe contends daily with a House and Senate whose majority party serves the will of the golf rat and deliberately stands in his way, openly saying they’d rather point fingers and lay blame than serve their constituents by pitching in to solve the real problems of this nation. All the while, the MAGA minions writhe and gyrate, mindlessly bleating out the lies passed down unto them by their Christian nationalist holy ones and dog handlers.
They must tell the hardest truth of all, that even with the impediments their party has set against him, deliberately and with malice, Joe has far surpassed Trump in achievement and service to the republic based on any sets of metrics you choose to compare.
Joe Biden may not be the best candidate in the country, but he’s the only one standing. Biden is the sole hero ready to pick up the sling and stone and face once again the fearsome giant, well armed and clad for battle.
When you need a David to face a Goliath, you typically don’t get the chance to be choosy, and now all but one of the would be GOP hopefuls have fallen ignobly by the way, vanquished and now endorsing their victor.
It’s too late for good Republicans to challenge Trump directly, but it’s not too late to carry rocks for the man who does stand, sling at ready. Biden can and has defeated the giant without GOP help and he can and likely will again, but it’s no sure thing. The Republicans who want to come out of this with their heads held high, knowing they did the right thing, have no other choice but to extend a hand and work honestly and openly to see that Biden wins by such an overwhelming margin that Trump’s inevitable sequel, “Election Rigged, Part Doh!” falls onto a vast sea of ears not buying it any more, deaf to the ever more insistent assertions of an increasingly irked adolescent.
And it’s not too late for good Republicans to challenge the incumbencies and candidacies of the many MAGA radicals in other elected offices of trust throughout the land. To make a sweep of it, to send the radical cult back to the darkness beneath the fringe from whence Trump called them.
Sure, Corporal Bonespur and his MAGA militia will bluster and blow and throw noisy tantrums, but the constitution our forefathers bequeathed us will be saved and secure and the bullies, once emboldened by appeasement, can be broken by the honest strength of firm conviction.