The internal struggle over the future of the GOP – Orange County Register

In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be difficult for the Republican Party to do two things. The first is to admit that former President Donald Trump’s claims about widespread voter fraud, changing results are untrue and undermining public trust in elections. The second is that what happened on January 6th was an inexcusable outbreak of violence, fueled by the lies (or delusions) of the then president, that people need to responsible if they are really to blame.

One can believe these currents of thought and still be a Republican, still be a conservative, and still think that the Democrats have the wrong ideas about America. One might even believe that there are weaknesses in the integrity of American elections and still believe them.

Yet the Republican Party is here today: The former president continues to make false claims about the 2020 election, while the Republican National Committee is trying to claim those involved. to the rioting events of January 6.

The former president recently claimed that former Vice President Mike Pence has the power to “overturn the election,” implicitly blaming him for failing to exercise this nonexistent power.

Let’s stop for a moment and think about that. A former president is claiming that a vice president has the power to overturn the presidential election. All one needs to do is review the Constitution’s frank explanation of certified voter counting etiquette to see that this is nonsense.

Republicans need to be honest with themselves. If this were a Democratic president, they would denounce such a president as an authoritarian threat to our constitutional republic,

Fortunately, Trump’s nonsense statement drew much-needed rebuke from Pence. “President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in remarks to the Federalist Association last week. “I have no power to overturn the election.”

Republicans need more adults in the room to get things going.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee criticized Republican Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for daring to participate in the House investigation into the events of May 6. first.

“Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in the Democratic-led crackdown on ordinary citizens engaging in legitimate public discourse, and both are using party politics. claimed in the past to conceal the Democrats’ abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes,” the statement said.

By combining the effort to overturn a legitimate election with “legitimate public discourse”, the RNC is demonstrating an absurd lack of judgment about an event that is not difficult to condemn and see for what it is.

Locally, San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford, a staunch conservative, had an understandable response to the statement. “’Legitimate political discourse’ does not describe what I saw on January 6. I used to [a member of the GOP] since I was 18, but today I went out. I love my country and am too free to follow the nonsense of either major party,” Rutherford tweeted.

Kudo to Rutherford for speaking up.

As long as Americans are confined to a two-party political system, it is essential that two parties are encouraged as reasonably as possible. Clearly, the national GOP is going through a constant internal battle over whether to duplicate Donald Trump’s capricious populism. It is not yet clear which direction the GOP will head, but the current trajectory is not promising.