http://www.weeklystandard.com/dump-trump-now-more-than-ever/article/2004782#.V_j_E2IbI8s.twitterDump Trump, Now More Than Ever10:06 AM, OCT 08, 2016 |
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
"We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments—and of Parliaments, for they are in it, too—during the years which led up to this catastrophe. They seek to indict those who were responsible for the guidance of our affairs. This also would be a foolish and pernicious process....Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future."
—Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 18, 1940
Churchill was right then. His example is right now. We need hold no inquests, we need indict no politicians, we need open no quarrel between the past and the present. We need to act now so as not to lose the future. The very real likelihood of imminent catastrophe—a catastrophe for the Republican party, and for the principles and policies that it, however imperfectly, has championed—should lead us to unite and act together. Never-Trumpers and quasi-Trumpers and second-thoughts-Trumpers need to come together now for the sake of saving the possibility of a conservative future.
What is to be done? There's a month until the election. Republicans of all types could band together to try to get Donald Trump to step down as the Republican nominee. Trump might not go easily. But if it were made clear to him that that all endorsements were to be withdrawn and that all resources were to be denied—if Mike Pence were to resign from the ticket and Reince Preibus were to refuse any further help—Trump might be persuaded.
There would undoubtedly then be a messy process of selecting a replacement, and there would be issues of ballot access and the like. But if the GOP electors in the various states agreed to vote in the electoral college for a candidate designated by the Republican National Committee—probably Mitt Romney, perhaps Mike Pence—these difficulties could be overcome.
If Trump refuses to step down, serious Republicans and conservatives need either to persuade someone like Mitt Romney to stand as an independent write-in candidate and/or to urge a vote for Evan McMullin; perhaps the two strategies could be combined if McMullin would agree that his electors would vote in the electoral college for Romney. But whatever the mechanism, serious Republicans and conservatives need to make sure there is another choice. And at the same time serious Republicans and conservatives, having written off Donald Trump, need to make the case for a Republican Senate and House in order to check a likely President Clinton.
The removal of Trump, or at least the separation from Trump, offers hope for Republicans and conservatives. But a party and a movement that continues to stand with Trump will fall with Trump. It will have lost the future.
