Voices from the Shadows

I've recently made very modest donations to Illinois Congressman Andy Kinzinger's "Country First" PAC, and to the Jamie Herrera Beutler "Jamie for Congress" campaign and as expected  am receiving regular email newsletters which are mostly hyperbole, talking in broad terms about getting back to conservative principals, and taking the Republican Party back from Trump. And of course they also ask for donations. I agree with and support their basic intent but as of this moment I don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of accomplishing anything. 

Private citizen Donald Trump has a stranglehold on the Republican Party. There are 161 Rebublicans in the House and Senate. Seventeen of them are on Trump's hit list. About a dozen of the faithful...the most vocal, far-right and I might add most obnoxious: the ones who get the media attention have made or will soon make their pilgrimages to Mar-A-Lago to genuflect at the master's knee. Mitch McConnel has caved in; first acknowledging his belief that Trump was in part responsible for the Capital invasion and has not yet escaped punishment, and lately pledging to support Trump when he runs in 2024. But I think Mitch's days are numbered. He crossed Trump and everyone knows what happens when you do that. 

There was a guy in the 1930s who promised to make his country great again. He talked of building a great economy, putting people to work again, reestablishing personal and national pride. At first he started with a small base of supporters, but the more speeches he gave, and the more internal enemies he identified so that the population had a common foe to focus on, the larger his base grew. He delivered on his promise to improve the economy, to put people back to work, to make the country a nation to be taken seriously by other countries. At the height of his power it was not the country but he who was worshiped, and anyone who did not fall into line or failed at their task as he saw it was eliminated, one way or another. In the end he overstepped his bounds; his lies, megalomania and inability to distinguish the possible from the impossible led to his own elimination. 

Back to the Republican party, what are the other 100+ silent Republicans doing? Where are their heads at? I suspect they're doing what politicians typically do, sitting back to see what path the party is going to take; if the party is going to break free or remain in Trump's control. I admire those Republicans who voted their conviction, probably knowing that they would be censored back home by their state political parties and many voters. I call that true courage. I'd love to see Andy Kinzinger, Jamie Buetler and the small number of others of like mind succeed in their efforts to refocus the Republican Party, and to produce a 2024 candidate who I could enthusiastically support rather than again voting for the lesser of the evils. But unless a critical mass of supporters come together, I fear that the the words of Andy and Jamie are just voices from the shadows.