Is the Republican Party over?

| 10:30 am EDT May 15, 2021
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The fallout over the Republican Party purge of truth-tellers like Liz Cheney continues. Former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina recently commented in a web cast interview by the Washington Post that Cheney’s removal from her House leadership position is “further evidence that the current Republican Party has lost its way.”

Fiorina also stated that she continues to speak out about “Donald Trump’s corrupting influence on the Republican Party” and the threat it poses to our American republic. She stated that “our democracy cannot function if you have a President claiming that the only way he can lose is if the election is rigged.” Both political parties must “accept the legitimacy of elections” and have a peaceful transfer of power.

Of course, the Democrats are the only political party officially accepting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. What explains the continued promotion of the “Big Lie” by the main body of Republicans? Carly Fiorina calls it “political opportunism.” The Republicans “are willing to throw out facts, truth, constitutional principles, the rule of law, and continue in their slavish devotion to Donald J. Trump” in order to regain the majority in 2022.

I’m no big fan of Carly Fiorina, but she is speaking truth to power here. So are others in the GOP orbit, like Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who calls his party “really sick…it’s like something you’d see out of North Korea, where…we just can’t make the dear leader mad.”

Unfortunately, the truth-tellers are rapidly becoming outliers in their own political party. Rep. Kinzinger commented that by purging the truth and its tellers from the Republican Party, “Trump has created something that he should be very afraid of, which is somebody who is going to tell the truth.”

Over a hundred prominent Republicans have signed a open letter threatening to leave the GOP if no changes happen. The question is, will enough sane Republicans realize that the party of Trump is no longer a place for them, and band together to form a third party? The Republicans did so in the 1850’s upon the death of the Whig Party. A reboot now would be great news for the Democrats and our democracy.