A Missed Opportunity and a Failed Test

A couple of weeks ago Donald Trump gave Republican politicians and their allies in the conservative media a splendid opportunity to take a stand and do something right to at least partially make up for the cowardice, dishonesty, and lack of principle they had shown since he tried to overthrow the government after losing the election in 2020. He demanded that the Constitution be “terminated” to return him to office and did it explicitly and in writing. All they had to do was call a spade a spade, repudiate an enemy of the republic as an enemy of the republic, and declare that Trump was unfit to hold any public office and unwelcome in their party. The decision to do so should have been an easy one for people who took their oaths of office or fidelity to the Constitution seriously. Yet nothing much happened. The self-styled constitutional conservatives in politics and the media mainly looked the other way just as they had looked the other way or, worse, supported him since November of 2020. It is hard to find a doubt to give them the benefit of.

Many libertarians usually have favored the Republicans over the Democrats in the belief that overall they were friendlier to freedom and usually had policies and plans that were less bad than those of the Dems. It is time for them to reconsider. If today’s Republicans cannot find the nerve or perhaps even a reason to reject a would be Duce who wants to take power by direct and unconstitutional action, how serious is their commitment to freedom and the Constitution, and how are they enough less dangerous than the Democrats to justify supporting them in a general way?