I really hate extolling her for anything. She’s a far right-winger who serves corporate masters. However, she isn’t crazy and at this point I’ll take it. This week she spoke at a Loeb School First Amendment Event In New Hampshire and said a bunch of stuff I disagree with about policy and American history etc. What else is new?
But she also said this and it’s important.
At this moment, when it matters most, we are also confronting a domestic threat that we’ve never faced before: a former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our Constitutional Republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.
Just last night, former President Trump was invited by House Republican leaders to be the keynote speaker at our annual large fundraising dinner. At the dinner, he reportedly said, once again, that the “insurrection was on November 3rd,” and that the events of January 6th — when a violent mob invaded the Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people and stop the constitutional process of the counting of electoral votes — that those events were a “protest,” that they were justified.
Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding a former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution.
When our constitutional order is threatened, as it is now, rising above partisanship is not simply an aspiration. It is an obligation — an obligation of every one of us.
You know, I am a conservative Republican. I disagree strongly with nearly everything President Biden has done since he has been in office. His policies are bad for this country. I believe deeply that conservative principles: limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense, the family — the family as the essential building block of our nation and our society, those are the right ideals for this country.
I love my party. I love its history. I love its principles, but I love my country more. I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth, one that puts forward our ideals and our policies based on substance. One that is willing to reject the former president’s lies. One that is willing to tell the truth: that millions of Americans have been tragically misled by former President Trump, who continues to this day to use language that he knows provoked violence on January 6th. We need a Republican Party that is led by people who remember that the peaceful transfer of power is sacred and it undergirds the very foundations of our Republic. We need Republican leaders who remember that fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to the rule of law, those are the most conservative of conservative principles.
In the months since January 6th, I have sometimes heard people say something like, “Well, what happened was bad, but it wasn’t that big a deal because our institutions held.” To those people, I say, our institutions do not defend themselves. We the people defend them.
Our institutions held on January 6th because there were brave men and women, elected officials at every level of our government who did their duty, who stood up for what was right, who resisted pressure to do otherwise. And our institutions held because of the bravery of the men and women in law enforcement and in our military, our Capitol Police, some of whom are here with us today, our metropolitan police, the ATF — men and women in law enforcement who defended the most sacred space in our Republic, our Capitol building.
Our institutions held because there were 140 law enforcement officers who fought for hours and held the tunnel on the West front of the Capitol, preventing a violent mob of even more, thousands more, from entering our building. Because of these brave men and women, Congress was safe and we carried out our constitutional duty to count the electoral votes.
That is why our institutions held. Because men and women of courage and honor recognized one of the most fundamental principles in a Republic — and that is the principle that no citizen in a Republic is a bystander. No one is. Every one of us is called to defend this great experiment of government of, by and for the people.
I’m afraid Liz is out there pretty much alone, making that case. Not even the Democrats have been as critical of the GOP as she has been.This is, in my opinion, the main reason Glenn Youngkin got over as well as he did. The Dems have just never successfully tied the Republican Party to Trump and as a result there exists some idea out in the electorate that they are not responsible for him. It’s daft. And that Youngkin campaign proves it.
As for Liz, apparently, she didn’t see the writing on the wall when her party went down the rabbit hole 20-30-40 years ago deciding that they would win by any means necessary. Her father ascended to the Vice Presidency by a partisan Supreme Court decision in an election case that was manipulated by the GOP and the president’s governor brother to give him a 535 vote victory out of a hundred million cast. So, really, Donald Trump had a precedent, didn’t he? And she was right in the middle of it.
I would say that maybe it’s guilt pushing her to do what she’s doing but I doubt it. I think she has her cynical reasons but I suspect it is truly just personal antipathy for Trump and his crude Big Lie. I do wonder if she’d have gone so obstinately against the party line if he’d just had a little more finesse. But what’s the difference? She represents a tiny little faction in the party. The rest of them are all in.