Anderson Herald Bulletin
Former President Donald Trump says and does so many outlandish things that it has become tempting to just ignore him. With his influence over the Republican Party and conservative politics fading, the temptation grows.
However, Trump still has his legions of followers, and he’s running again for the GOP presidential nomination. What he says and does can be dangerous to the party and to the nation itself.
His words, as the country so clearly saw on Jan. 6, 2021, can motivate and embolden extremists to take violent action against the United States and its government.
Recently, the former president has ventured into such dangerous territory at least twice.
On Nov. 22, he hosted and sat down to dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and antisemitic rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West).
Then, on Dec. 3, reacting to the release of internal Twitter communication about posts related to a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the former president suggested that portions of the U.S. Constitution should be “terminated” for the purpose of investigating what he called “a massive fraud” perpetrated by Twitter and the Biden administration.
In these two recent cases, as in dozens of others stretching back to Trump’s presidential candidacy in 2016, leaders of the Republican Party should have been compelled by their humanity and their allegiance to country to forcefully repudiate not only Trump’s words and actions but the man himself.
Yet the vast majority of GOP leaders have not done this. Yes, occasionally a few of them surface briefly to disagree with one of Trump’s statements, but most are careful not to criticize Trump himself.
Instead, they’ve kowtowed to him, thereby helping Trump tighten his grip on the party. Most of the nation already sees Republican supplication to Trump as cowardice, and history will surely take a dim view of those who empowered him by remaining silent.
How will history measure Indiana’s GOP leaders during the Trump years?
Here’s a clue: Neither of the U.S. senators from the Hoosier state — Republicans Todd Young and Mike Braun — issued a public statement condemning Trump’s recent comment about the Constitution or his dubious choice of dinner guests.
Former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, himself a possible presidential candidate, also failed to forcefully condemn the man under whom he served as vice president.
Braun’s record of supplication to Trump leaves little hope that he will ever call out the former president. But both Young and Pence, in different ways, have stood up to Trump in the past.
Their failure to do so again leaves Hoosiers to wonder whether either man has the backbone and vision needed to truly serve Hoosiers in state or national government.
