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“Responsibility, Duty And Honor”: GOP Leaders; Put Your Country Before Your Party

He can’t do it, Republicans. It’s time for you to admit that Donald Trump is incapable of even pretending to be an acceptable candidate for president. The question is which side of history you want to be on.

Are you going to stand with him as the balloons drop on the last night of the convention, knowing he shares neither your views nor your values? Are you going to work your hearts out this fall to put an unstable bully in charge of our national defense? Is party unity so much more important to you than trifles such as responsibility, duty and honor?

Leading Republicans should pay attention to what Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) told a reporter for the conservative Newsmax website: “What I am saying is Donald Trump can still get a vote from a lot of conservatives like me, but I would like some assurances on where he stands. I would like some assurances that he is going to be a vigorous defender of the U.S. Constitution. That he is not going to be an autocrat. That he is not going to be an authoritarian. That he is not somebody who is going to abuse a document that I have sworn an oath to uphold and protect and defend.”

Lee, who has not endorsed Trump, specifically mentioned “the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK” — referring to Trump’s scurrilous and unfounded charges about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — and also Trump’s history of making “statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant.”

My only question for Lee is why Trump might still get his vote. I realize that Hillary Clinton is a Democrat, but no one has suggested that she might shred the Constitution or that she is a religious bigot. I thought the oath to “protect and defend” meant putting country before party.

To be sure, some leading Republicans are doing just that. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, is one of the loudest and most consistent “Never Trump” voices. The Bush family, which incarnates the GOP’s recent history, is boycotting the convention. My colleague George F. Will, a principled conservative if ever there was one, said last week he had left the Republican Party because of Trump.

But most GOP luminaries are like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who has obvious reservations about his party’s presumptive nominee but supports him nonetheless. McConnell said this week that “people are looking for a level of seriousness that is typically conveyed by having a prepared text and teleprompter and staying on message.”

In other words, McConnell hopes Trump can at least pretend to be serious and stable long enough to make it through the general-election campaign.

Asked Wednesday if he agreed, Romney said no. “I think Mr. Trump has demonstrated who he is by virtue of what he said in the process to this point,” he explained. “What he says from this point forward may paper over that.”

I’ve had the same worry — that Trump would appear to be more statesmanlike and fool voters into thinking he had changed. With every passing week, however, I become less concerned about this scenario. Trump is who he is.

Every time Trump gives a prepared speech in which he manages to stay on message, drawing praise from the party establishment, he negates it by reverting to his old self. His address on foreign policy a couple of months ago, for example, was wrongheaded but basically mainstream. This week, however, he has been ranting about how the United States needs to use waterboarding and other torture techniques against suspected terrorists.

And you’re going to vote for this guy, John McCain? You, a former prisoner of war who was tortured by the North Vietnamese? You, the Senate’s most outspoken opponent of the practice?

McConnell said he hoped that Trump “is beginning to pivot and become what I would call a more serious and credible candidate for the highest office in the land.” Asked whether this was happening, McConnell replied, “He’s getting closer.”

But he’s not, and McConnell surely knows it. So does House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who will preside over the convention at which Trump is set to be nominated. So do many Republicans who, when I ask them about Trump, either sigh, shrug or run away.

We are talking about the presidency of the United States, Republicans. You are about to nominate and support a man you know to be dangerously unworthy. Some loyalty.

 

By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 30, 2016

July 2, 2016 Posted by | Donald Trump, GOP Leadership, Republican National Convention | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“GOP Leader ‘Offended’ By Establishment Label”: It’s Hard To Get More “Establishment” Than John Thune

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), after nearly two decades on Capitol Hill, has been called a lot of things, but Roll Call reported this week on the one label he considers “offensive.”

Real estate mogul Donald Trump has been the front-runner for months, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who touts himself as a political outsider even though he is a sitting lawmaker. Cruz regularly refers to congressional leadership and other politicians as “the Washington cartel.”

Thune said he resents that characterization. “Well, I’m personally very offended to be called the establishment,” he said.

Note, he’s not just offended; he’s very offended.

For those unfamiliar with Thune, let’s note some of the basic details of his c.v. He’s currently the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the #3 position in the GOP leadership. The South Dakota senator, in his 12th year in the chamber after three terms in the House, is also the chairman of the Commerce Committee and the former chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

I hate to break this to the senator, but it’s hard to get more “establishment” than John Thune.

But the fact that the GOP lawmaker would make a point to distance himself from the “establishment’ ” he helps lead says a great deal about the state of Republican politics in 2016.

Traditionally, the party’s inside-the-Beltway power players reveled in their status, confident about the role they played in guiding the GOP’s direction and choosing its nominees.

The word “establishment” wasn’t used much – it was instead, simply, “the party” – and when it was used, the word certainly wasn’t an epithet to be avoided.

How much has the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz influenced the state of the GOP? Enough to make prominent members of the Republican establishment pretend otherwise.

 

By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, January 16, 2016

January 18, 2016 Posted by | Establishment Republicans, GOP Leadership, John Thune | , , , , | Leave a comment

“Put Fear In Perspective”: Don’t Let The Republican Candidates Fool You; The U.S. Has Dealt With Much Worse Than ISIS

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Franklin Roosevelt’s historic statement was not exactly the mantra at this week’s Republican presidential debate.

As I listened to the apocalyptic predictions from the Republican candidates Tuesday night, I could not help but compare the concerns about the Islamic State group to what many of us faced during the Cold War – the very real threat of nuclear Armageddon and fear of the mushroom cloud.

The fallout shelters that people were building in their backyards (they make nice wine cellars now), the drills where we crouched under our desks at school, the sounds of air-raid sirens testing the early warning system, the fear we felt during the Cuban missile crisis, living with the mutual assured destruction policies of the U.S. and the Soviet Union – these all combined to create much more of a threat than a group like the Islamic State group – the nuclear arms race was viewed as truly potentially catastrophic.

The devastation of the world-wide 1930s depression that FDR was addressing was truly catastrophic.

The 1918 flu pandemic that infected 500 million people across the globe, killing 50 to 100 million and 500,00 to 675,000 in the U.S. – that was catastrophic.

I understand the fear of the Islamic State group, but in comparison, please, this we can deal with rationally and pragmatically.

Sadly, this past Republican debate leads us to the conclusion that when it comes to using fear to incite voters, this field of candidates will go to nearly any lengths.

Not to go over the top here, but this is what noted Nazi official Heinrich Himmler said about the use of fear: “The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.”

This is what the Islamic State group is counting on – bringing America to its knees simply by using terror to create fear. By reacting with a “war on Muslims” as many Republican candidates seem to be advocating, the real terrorists gain control and are handed a golden recruiting tool.

This makes no sense. We can defeat this movement. We can organize the nations of the world to unite against their terrorism. We can surely be victorious without resorting to scare tactics and whipping the American voter up into a frenzy.

We have faced much worse, but just as the spread of Ebola became a daily concern and created close to a panic a year ago, the reality is our media and out politics whip the public into a frenzy when calmer heads should prevail.

During the Republican debate the words terror, terrorist and terrorism were used 81 times. The word attack was used 50 times, according to reporting from Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune.

As he pointed out, here are just a few quotes from this week’s debate:

“We need to understand that our nation is in grave danger.”

“We have people across this country who are scared to death.”

“ISIS and Iran have declared war on America, and we need a commander in chief who will do everything necessary to keep our children safe.”

“Our country doesn’t win anymore. … We can’t defeat ISIS.”

OK, I get the politics of all this. I get the perceived need of these performers to out-do one another, but isn’t it time we had some reasoned leadership that acted responsibly to understand the true nature of the threat and deal with it properly? Isn’t there one person on that stage who could put this in perspective and not demagogue the Islamic State terrorists?

The threat is real but does not deserve the draconian response of nearly every Republican candidate for President. If we ever needed cooler heads like FDR, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, certainly that time is now.

 

By: Peter Fenn, Democratic Political Strategist and Head of Fenn Communications; U. S. News and World Report, December 18, 2015

December 20, 2015 Posted by | Fearmongering, GOP Leadership, GOP Presidential Candidates, Terrorism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“A ‘Where’s Waldo’ Of GOP Leadership”: Sorting Through The Crowd, There’s No Clear Leader

This week’s Republican debate was like a “Where’s Waldo” of leadership. The subject matter discussed – national security and terrorism – is so complex, and so vast, it was tough to find the best leader on the crowded stage. And we want to find that leader. Very much. Because we’re worried and scared.

Part of the reason we feel insecure, let’s face it, is because we have no idea how to solve this problem of the murderous and determined Islamic State group. Common sense tells us that fighting on the ground in Syria and Iraq isn’t enough, or quite right, since there are Islamic State group enclaves in other countries as well as followers all over the globe. So even if we could dismantle or contain the so-called caliphate, we could still have more attacks like we had in San Bernardino and Paris. We understand that technology enables the Islamic State group’s hold to spread like a cancer, but we don’t know if there is a national security equivalent of chemotherapy.

That’s the backdrop of the “Where’s Waldo” leadership puzzle. And like a puzzle, this week’s debate contained multiple moments where we thought, “Oh, there it is!” For example, when Florida Sen. Marco Rubio explained the nuclear triad (“Yes,” we thought, “this is the type of thing I want my president to understand and be able to explain!”) or when Carly Fiorina showed us why the bureaucracy of government is “woefully inadequate” when it comes to assessing and addressing the terror threat. “Every parent in America is checking social media, and every employer is as well, but our government can’t do it?” she said. (“Yes,” we thought, “government has no common sense! We wish it did!”)

Less helpful were the nitty-gritty debates over the law. While certainly an important part of preventing terrorist attacks and bringing their perpetrators to justice, the laws governing everything from data collection to immigration must be part of an overall vision of how we deal with the Islamic State group and its followers. If we can’t see the vision, the details are just details. They obscure leadership.

When it comes to security, we ask a lot of our leaders. We need a lot. We want everything from tactics and strategy, to cues on how to think and feel about the threat, to reassurance that the bad guys are going to lose and the good guys will win.

President Ronald Reagan excelled at this during the Cold War. President George W. Bush was also very good at it in the months following 9/11. To find out who can reassure, and fight, and inspire in the age of the Islamic State group is our responsibility as voters. It will be the job of our nation in 2016 to sort through the crowd and find our Waldo – the woman or man who will someday add his or her voice and leadership to a proud presidential history that still echoes with moments like “Ich bin ein Berliner,” “tear down this wall” and “the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

 

By: Jean Card, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, December 17, 2015

December 19, 2015 Posted by | Fearmongering, GOP Leadership, GOP Presidential Candidates, ISIS | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

   

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