Happy July 4. We have a republic to save.
If the republic is intact, even public policy I dislike will sort itself out over time into something tolerable.
If the republic itself is broken, then it only gets fixed by chaos and war.
A majority of Republican voters are willing to dismiss democratic process in favor of a favored outcome. Most GOP political leaders are following that herd. It is, as Liz Cheney says, "the easier path."
I disagree with Liz Cheney on many issues, but she has the big thing correct. We have a republic to save. She is speaking here to fellow Republicans, but they are words for the nation. She is at the Reagan Library. She said:
But I also know that at this moment, we are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before. And that is a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional Republic.
And he is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials, who've made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.
Now, some in my party are embracing the former president, and even after all we've seen, they're enabling his lies.
Many others are urging that we not confront Donald Trump, that we look away.
And that is certainly the easier path.
One need only look at the threats that are facing the witnesses who've come before the January 6th committee to understand the nature and the magnitude of that threat.
But to argue that the threat posed by Donald Trump can be ignored is to cast aside the responsibility that every citizen, every one of us, bears to perpetuate the Republic.
We must not do that. And we cannot do that.
Ronald Reagan said it is up to us in our time to choose — and to choose wisely — between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best, while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
No party, and no people, and no nation can defend and perpetuate a constitutional Republic if they accept a leader who's gone to war with the rule of law, with the democratic process, or with the peaceful transition of power, with the Constitution itself.
As the full picture is coming into view with the January 6th Committee, it has become clear that the efforts Donald Trump oversaw and engaged in were even more chilling and more threatening than we could have imagined.
As we have shown, Donald Trump attempted to overturn the presidential election. He attempted to stay in office and to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
He summoned a mob to Washington.
He knew they were armed on January 6th.
He knew they were angry, and he directed the violent mob to march on the capital in order to delay or prevent completely the counting of electoral votes.
He attempted to go there with them. And when the violence was underway, he refused to take action to tell the rioters to leave.
Instead, he incited further violence by tweeting that the vice president, Mike Pence, was a coward. He said, quote, Mike deserves it. And he didn't want to do anything in response to the “Hang Mike Pence” chants.
It's undeniable. It's also painful for Republicans to accept.
And I think we all have to recognize and understand what it means to say those words, and what it means that those things happen.
But the reality that we face today, as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us:
We have to choose. Because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.
Peter, Thanks for publishing the full text of Liz Chaney's remarks. TR
Rose and I are recovering after marching for over a mile in the 4th of July parade in Marietta Ohio this morning with our Sons (and Daughters) of the American Revolution chapter. Bitter-Sweet reactions given that our liberties are no longer protected by a criminal majority of the SCOTUS. A small group of women and girls were protesting the rescinding of reproductive rights, and one woman dressed as a HandMaiden and her grand-daughter wanted a photo of us with them which we gladly complied; my Republican SAR colleagues blanched and walked away, What jerks they be who don't understand the history of gaining individual freedoms and rights. And then while I was standing guard at the speaker's platform, two women approached Rose also for a photograph as one of the women was an Ukrainian refugee and wanted to experience Americans celebrating Independence Day. Rose broke down sobbing and hugging the lady; oh the irony, not realizing that for the past week the USA is losing the freedoms that many of our ancestors fought for 246 years ago, but Ukrainians now are fighting for. Scott M