The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Last night I watched a two-hour CNN special entitled Trumping Democracy. It chronicled the attempts of Donald Trump to declare his defeat in the 2020 election a conspiratorial fraud by the Democrats.
The only Members of Congress asked to participate in the program were some of the ten Republican House of Representative members who voted to impeach President Trump when that vote was passed shortly after the election. In addition, other officials who had served in the Trump administration who had resigned in protest over his post-election machinations also were interviewed.
All of these traditionally conservative Republicans very forcefully addressed their concerns that Mr. Trump’s actions before and after his defeat were an orchestrated effort to undermine the results of the election in such a way that it would be overturned. The president believed he then would be declared the winner by Congress, or the courts, or anybody capable of overturning his obvious numerical and Electoral College defeat. The conductor of that orchestration obviously was, from its beginning, Donald Trump.
By the end of the documentary, it became clear to me how Trump can be defeated in 2024 should he become the Trumplican nominee for president. According to the loyalist Grand Old Party Congress members who appeared on Trumping Democracy, there are a much larger number than ten Republicans in both Houses of Congress who know beyond any doubt that the former president lost the 2020 election fairly. They also know he was busy trying to hatch a conspiracy to negate his 2020 defeat from the moment he was elected president in 2016. He intended, and still intends, to take over the US government by a cleverly planned coup.
So how can he be stopped? Here is the most effective way that is certain either to prevent him from being the nominee of the Trump Republicans in 2024 or by defeating him in the ghastly possibility that he might become their nominee. Traditional conservative Republicans need to begin organizing immediately to establish a third party whose primary purpose is to keep Donald Trump from ever becoming president again.
There are scores of Members of both Houses of Congress who are genuine traditional Republicans who strongly oppose Donald Trump. However, they have not publicly stated their opposition because they fear losing in a contested primary in their own states (for senators) or districts (for House members).
To be sure, the establishment of the Traditional Republicans for Democracy Party would pose a great threat to candidates of the new party in 2022 were they to come out of the closet prior to such primaries to admit their educated opposition to the former president. Therefore let them remain essentially silent about the dangers Trump poses to American democracy, and let them try to win in their primaries without admitting their grave reservations about our former chief executive. Further, should they decide not to run in 2022 (and at least two of the ten anti-Trump House members have indicated they won’t run), then if necessary, the TRDs would nominate candidates to run in the primaries against Trumplicans who would strongly oppose them.
It is highly uncertain what such an unprecedented primary season would produce, but it might result in more Republican Members of Congress who would feel free after the general election of 2022 to come out strongly against Trump. That would at least create a more predictable and pliable Congress than the one we have now, where artifice by both parties is the name of the political game.
But what about the election of 2024? Here is where the Traditional Republicans for Democracy Party will almost guarantee the defeat of Donald Trump, should he become the nominee of the Trumplican Party, otherwise now known as the Republican Party. They should nominate either Liz Cheney for president and Adam Kinzinger for vice president, or vice versa. (Personally, I think a Cheney-Kinzinger ticket would be stronger than a Kinzinger-Cheney ticket.)
The main objective of the Traditional Republicans for Democracy Party would be to siphon away a sufficient number of Republican votes in every state to prevent Donald Trump from winning another election. But should he not be the candidate of the currently cowardly Republican Party, and a Trump clone is the candidate, then the Traditionals conceivably could defeat the Trumplican candidate, and maybe the Democratic candidate as well.
Considering that the Democrats at the moment are sufficiently divided as to be unable to pass any major legislation quickly and effectively, were traditional Republicans to prove victorious in this hypothetical scenario, not only would the world not end, but it would far better off than it is now. After all, something major needs to happen to keep Americans from killing America. – November 6, 2021
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.