By Grace Vuoto
In a recent podcast, former adviser to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, blasted Republicans for failing to support the presumptive nominee. He stated that it is clear, by their repeated lack of response to an-out-control Justice Department, that they are secretly hoping Trump will lose the election in 2024.
“Nothing’s happening to support President Trump,” he said.
The sentiment is echoed by GOP firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who is spearheading a movement to remove Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his leadership role. Johnson collaborated with House Democrats to pass a monstrous $95 billion spending bill, funding security for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan— while breaking his promise to secure the border first. This has left many among the GOP base feeling betrayed and demoralized.
How many voters will now stay home rather than vote in 2024? What is the point of voting for the Republican party, many wonder, if its leaders advance Democratic objectives when they gain office?
The Republican Party has just handed President Joe Biden a huge win, at a moment when his approval numbers are abysmal. Why did they bail him out? And why have they failed to protect and defend their very own nominee from endless prosecutions?
It is indeed astonishing how often, in the last four years, the Republican Party has failed to provide a united front. While Biden has given the nation division, inflation and chaos abroad—making it easy to oppose his policies from the right—the GOP nonetheless cannot get its act together.
There is a simple reason for this: Republican elites despise Trump. Hence, the party is paralyzed in an endless battle with itself. Trump wins over large swathes of voters, while consistently alienating key elements of the GOP power structure. One arm of the GOP is fighting the left while the other is being handcuffed by the right.
We simply cannot go forward in this manner if we are to regain an American nation governed by its Founding ideals of limited government, a vigorous free market and traditional moral values.
We need complete transparency by each member of the GOP. Those who vehemently oppose the direction the people are moving the party, should resign and step aside. And failing to do so, once unmasked, they must be pushed out.
But this process will not be complete in the next few months. In the meantime, Bannon’s worst fears are accurate. The saboteurs within the Republican Party are actively working to block Trump’s return. Many RINOS are in denial; they believe they can save the party from itself, perhaps reversing course and returning the GOP to its neoconservative heyday.
Perhaps these elitist Republicans would be on solid ground if those years of ascendancy they crave were marked by sentiments of gratitude by the people. But the opposite is true: They failed to stop the relentless advance of Big Government, globalism and moral decay. Hence, the conservative base has every right to demand a change of course. How dare its very own leaders stand in the way.
Republican elites used to make fun of Democrats who are consistently so enamored with their own ideas that they cannot hear the cries of Americans in distress. Yet, many have morphed into the very joke they used to make about their opponents. To secretly work against Trump is not an act of enlightened superiority. It is instead a flagrant rejection of republican ideals: The voice of the people must be respected.
The GOP elites have forgotten this basic principle of democracy when it applies to their own party. They are now the very embodiment of the detached figureheads they originally sought to replace.
And that, tragically for this nation, is the ultimate meaning of being lost.
-Grace Vuoto, Ph.D. is a political commentator and columnist. She can be heard Wednesday mornings at 9:00 am on The Kuhner Report WRKO-AM 680.
Image courtesy of Getty Creative