Trump Should Bow Out so Republicans Can Save America

Republicans are fighting each other and Democrats are encouraging it. In 2012, I had the pleasure of watching the presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney at a private residence in Carmel, California with Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. The former vice president was polite and quiet, watching the debates intently and nearly motionless in the comfortable chair by the TV, though visibly tensing each time he was described by Obama as a warmonger or a puppet master.

I had seen Liz Cheney only as an occasional television commentator, but she was more talkative and warm than her father. I found her to be intelligent, informed, and just as politically conservative as her dad. This was four years before her successful run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

I next saw Liz Cheney at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Summit in Washington, DC. This nominally bipartisan pro-Israel group brings together supporters of Israel and politicians to emphasize the importance of the America-Israel relationship and to encourage good foreign policies. My wife and I had slept late and were walking to the Convention Center, when I saw Liz walking quickly toward us, head down, an unhappy look on her face. She had been scheduled to be on an early morning panel discussion with Republican and Democrat pundits and politicians. I found out later that she had been scolded for her attack on the Obama administration’s policies on Israel and the complicity of the Democrats on the panel. The AIPAC officials harshly informed her that she must be bipartisan and nonconfrontational at AIPAC. This was the beginning of my disenchantment with AIPAC and my growing respect for the outspoken Liz Cheney.

Recently, Liz Cheney was publicly scolded yet again, but this time by her fellow Republicans, as she was removed from her leadership position as House Republican Conference chair. What was her transgression? That’s not clear because different Republicans give different official reasons, but certainly it was her vote to impeach President Trump and her outspoken message that Republicans need to focus on real issues and fix our cracking society. Our country is under attack by socialists and anarchists, and Republicans must move on from the story of the election. And more importantly, Republicans must stop focusing on President Trump. We have much more important things to do, like saving America.

Liz Cheney was replaced in her position by Representative Elise Stafanik. I like Rep. Stefanik, but she doesn’t support conservative principles to the extent that Liz Cheney does as one of the most conservative voices in Congress. In fact, Cheney voted for Trump’s policies 92.9% of the time, one of the highest in all of Congress. Stefanik’s percentage is a respectable 77.7%, but not nearly as high as Cheney. I strongly disliked Cheney’s vote for impeachment, but should protecting Trump be the Republicans’ main concern at this time of crisis?

Mike Pence is a strong conservative politician who supported President Trump, but who is now labeled a traitor. The same can be said for Jeff Sessions. We could argue about others like Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger. You may or may not like Mitch McConnel, but he’s a conservative. And it’s hard to argue that George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, John Bolton, Ben Sasse, and Tom Ridge aren’t conservatives. And yet all of these people, and many more, are now being attacked for their disloyalty to Trump. It was Trump’s disparaging remarks against “disloyal” Republicans Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger of Georgia that lost the Senate elections there and handed Congressional control to the Democrats.

This Republican circular firing squad being makes no sense in a time when our society is crumbling because the woke Left is indoctrinating our kids, running our media, defunding our police, attacking citizens, burning down businesses, restricting our liberties, and getting Americans to abandon American principles. And yet here we conservatives stand, taking sides in support of or in opposition to one of the most divisive leaders in American history. In fact, illustrating my point perfectly, this very article was rejected by multiple conservative publications that previously welcomed my articles—one editor claimed I had written “garbage” in support of “an evil person”—for defending Cheney and criticizing Trump.

It makes no difference whether you like Trump or not, whether you think the election was rigged or was fair, whether Trump is a genius or a deplorable. America is burning—literally—and the Republicans are fiddling. More than any time in recent history, America needs a unified conservative party to preserve American values and defeat socialism, intersectionalism, wokeism, and all the other crazy, destructive philosophies of the Left.

In fact, the crazy Left could be defeated easily, but only by a unified Republican Party that represents ideas and ideals, not any particular person. That’s why the liberal media and the Democrats are keeping Trump in power in their statements and in the headlines. The liberal media is still harping about Trump and his control of the Republican Party. Liberal Big Tech gains more by banning Trump and thus energizing his supporters than they would by allowing him to tweet and post and generally rant. The Democrats are still talking about the evils of the Trump administration because first, it detracts from the horrific policies they’re implementing and second, because it keeps the Republicans in disarray. And it’s working! Republicans easily take the bait and bicker among themselves while they lose credibility, lose respect, and most alarmingly, lose power. A unified Republican Party could easily retake the majority in both houses of Congress in 2022 if they would ignore Trump and focus on issues and policies.

We conservatives need to ask ourselves, what do we care about? Do we care about defeating those who don’t like Trump? Do we care about restoring Trump to the presidency even if it’s an impotent position after the Democrats control Congress and pack the Supreme Court? Or do we care about restoring American values even if it means making alliances with those who share those values but don’t share our opinions about Trump?

Ronald Reagan said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Yitzhak Rabin said, “You don’t make peace with friends, you make it with your enemies.” I say Republicans must unite at all costs to save Western Civilization. This goal is too important to be tied to personalities or petty grievances. Donald Trump certainly knows how to bow out quietly from a failed business; it’s time for him to fade away from the spotlight for the good of the country. And if he refuses, we must politely ignore him and unite against the real enemies of America, the woke Left. The stakes are much too high to do anything else if we wish to preserve the Union and rescue civilization.