Periodically in the Trump era, as with President Ronald Reagan, some Establishment Republican elite will pop up to lecture Donald Trump or, before that, Reagan supporters. Preferably in the New York Times or some other far-left publication.
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Their point is always the same.
Trump — and Reagan before him — is too extreme for the GOP. And the Republican Party will be seriously damaged if it nominates him.
Recall these comments from various Republican elites of the day about Reagan, as previously noted in this space back there in the stone age of 2015:
- Vice President Nelson Rockefeller dismissed Reagan as “a minority of a minority” who “has been taking some extreme positions.”
- New York’s Republican Senator Jacob Javits: Reagan’s positions are “so extreme that they would alter our country’s very economic and social structure and our place in the world to such a degree as to make our country’s place at home and abroad, as we know it, a thing of the past.”
- Illinois Republican Senator Charles Percy said Reagan’s candidacy was “foolhardy” and would lead to a “crushing defeat” for the Republican Party. “It could signal the beginning of the end of our party as an effective force in American political life.”
- Former President Gerald Ford: “I hear more and more often that we don’t want, can’t afford to have a replay of 1964.” If the Republican Party nominates Ronald Reagan “it would be an impossible situation” because Reagan “is perceived as a most conservative Republican. A very conservative Republican can’t win in a national election.” Asked if that meant Ford thought Reagan can’t win, Ford replied to the New York Times: “That’s right.” The Times story went on to observe that Ford thought “Mr. Reagan would be a sure-loser in November” and that Reagan held “extreme and too-simple views.”
Then, it was Establishment elite Republicans on Reagan. Today, it is George H.W. Bush–appointed Establishment elite former Judge J. Michael Luttig who has stepped forward. Again. And, of course, he did it in the RINO’s favorite place to lecture Republicans — in the pages of the far-left New York Times.
Among his points Luttig starts off headlining:
It’s Not Too Late for the Republican Party
Luttig goes on:
In a word, the Republicans are as responsible as Mr. Trump for this month’s indictment — and will be as responsible for any indictment and prosecution of him for Jan. 6. One would think that, for a party that has prided itself for caring about the Constitution and the rule of law, this would stir some measure of self-reflection among party officials and even voters about their abiding support for the former president….
Building the Republican campaign around the newly indicted front-runner is a colossal political miscalculation, as comedic as it is tragic for the country. No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning….
There’s no stopping Republicans now, until they have succeeded in completely politicizing the rule of law in service to their partisan political ends.
Say what? The corrupted Biden Department of Justice has decidedly weaponized the law to indict President Joe Biden’s leading opponent — and a former Bush-appointed federal judge gives a nod and a wink to this outright corruption worthy of a banana republic? Seriously? (READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Biden’s Banana Republic)
Well, of course, he does. Because there is no such thing as the law to these elites. They are about their left-wing political agenda and using their bureaucracy to implement that agenda.
Yet again, recall this Jan. 31, 2017, front-page Washington Post article on the actual reality of the Justice Department and the larger federal bureaucracy. The headline:
Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump
Among other things, this story, which appeared a mere 11 days into Trump’s term, reported this, with bold print for emphasis supplied:
The signs of popular dissent from President Trump’s opening volley of actions have been plain to see on the nation’s streets, at airports in the aftermath of his refugee and visa ban, and in the blizzard of outrage on social media. But there’s another level of resistance to the new president that is less visible and potentially more troublesome to the administration: a growing wave of opposition from the federal workers charged with implementing any new president’s agenda.
Less than two weeks into Trump’s administration, federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president’s initiatives. Some federal employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word of changes that Trump appointees are trying to make….
At the Justice Department, an employee in the division that administers grants to nonprofits fighting domestic violence and researching sex crimes said the office has been planning to slow its work and to file complaints with the inspector general’s office if asked to shift grants away from their mission.
“You’re going to see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage,” said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Through leaks to news organizations and internal complaints, he said, “people here will resist and push back against orders they find unconscionable.”
The resistance is so early, so widespread and so deeply felt that it has officials worrying about paralysis and overt refusals by workers to do their jobs….
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a Trump adviser and longtime critic of the bureaucracy, said the pushback against the new administration reveals how firmly entrenched liberals are and how threatened they feel by the new regime. He cited an analysis by the Hill newspaper that showed that 95 percent of campaign donations from employees at 14 federal agencies went to Hillary Clinton last fall.
“This is essentially the opposition in waiting,” Gingrich said. “He may have to clean out the Justice Department because there are so many left-wingers there. State is even worse.”
Exactly.
And right on cue, here is Luttig — unwittingly at best, quite consciously at worst — signing on with the corruption of the Justice Department that was spelled out by Gingrich.
Building the Republican Party, as Luttig is effectively suggesting, around support for an utterly corrupted Department of Justice and other federal bureaucracies — like the FBI and the IRS — is exactly the wrong way for the Republican Party to go.
Outside of the Times — which refuses to cover the story — one example after another of utter corruption in the federal government has surfaced. Here’s one recent headline from CBS:
Two IRS whistleblowers alleged sweeping misconduct in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, new transcripts show
The story reports:
Two IRS whistleblowers allege sweeping misconduct, including interference in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, according to the GOP House Ways and Means Committee chairman and newly released transcripts of congressional interviews with the whistleblowers.
The House Committee on Oversight headlines this from its Republican Chairman Rep. James Comer:
Comer: IRS Whistleblowers Reveal Justice Department Attempted a Biden Family Cover-Up
The committee reports, bold print for emphasis supplied:
Americans have been wondering why the Justice Department took five years to do what H&R Block could have done in five hours. Now we know that Biden’s Justice Department has been actively engaged in a cover-up to protect the Bidens from facing justice. We now also know that critical evidence contained within the FBI’s Biden bribery record was not shared with tax investigators who have since revealed they had potentially corroborating evidence during the investigation. Americans are angry about this two-tiered system of justice that allows the politically connected to operate above the law.
There is a reason why Trump’s polls soared after his unprecedented indictment — an indictment that could be used against every other president. Whether it was former President Bill Clinton keeping audio tapes in his sock drawer or Biden keeping national security documents — a career’s worth — strewn over his garage next to his beloved Corvette — not to mention in three decidedly unsecured other locations — Americans get the blatant double standard. Which is exactly why Trump’s polls soar.
As examples? Here are a few post-indictment polls.
It can be Interactive Polls putting Trump at 77.7 percent to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 22.3 percent. Political Polls with Trump defeating Biden 49 percent to 44 percent. Or a McLaughlin & Associates Iowa poll putting Trump at 55 percent to 24 percent.
One could go on and on with poll findings like this. And you can take it to the bank that the GOP base gets the game being played — again — by GOP Establishment elites.
Which is to say, the Establishment protects its own. And millions of Americans get it. In fact, Luttig himself colluded with the corrupt Jan. 6 Committee, the committee itself a sterling example of a corruption of justice. A committee built and run in the style of a banana republic.
What Luttig’s defense of corruption in the New York Times illustrates — yet again — is just how far-gone Trump opponents are when it comes to defending the Constitution and the law.
Is it a shame? Yes. And too late for Luttig.
It is also appalling. And no Republican of any sense and integrity should pay attention.
