Newsletter: Time for Republicans to start abandoning Trump
Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion. By
But if this is our country’s new normal — where a job (in this case the presidency) that demands consistency and levelheadedness is held by someone who prides himself on practicing precisely the opposite — then it only underscores the points made by the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board in the latest installment of its series “Our Dishonest President”: that Trump’s conduct has become unacceptable, and it’s time for his fellow
The editorial board wrote:
With such a glaring failure of moral leadership at the top, it is desperately important that others stand up and speak out to defend American principles and values. This is no time for neutrality, equivocation or silence. Leaders across America — and especially those in the president’s own party — must summon their reserves of political courage to challenge President Trump publicly, loudly and unambiguously.
Enough is enough. ...
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) are the two most-powerful men in Congress. Both have fired off the occasional potshot, but for the most part, they have stood firmly behind this wildly flawed president, despite the taunts and insults Trump hurled at them from his Twitter redoubt.
What holds them back? Craven, self-serving political calculations designed to protect their careers, and dwindling hope that the president, despite everything, will help them move their long-delayed legislative agenda.
Their silence is shameful.
How about the more rational members of Trump’s Cabinet? They should be fleeing the administration, refusing to stand mutely against the wall at his press conferences while he steps on their messages and undermines their best efforts. ...
Republicans and conservatives around the country should be just as concerned as Democrats about Trump’s conflicts of interest, his campaign’s relationship with the Russians and whether he engaged in obstruction of justice. They should call him out when he sows division, when he dog-whistles, when he emboldens bigots. They should stand up for global human rights, for constructive engagement with the rest of the world and for other shared American values that transcend party allegiances.
Rejecting the president of one’s own party could mean alienating friends, crossing allies, damaging one’s chances of advancement or risking one’s career altogether for a matter of principle. But that’s the very definition of leadership.
No one can sit on the sidelines now. It’s time for Republicans to show some spine.
Why aren’t white evangelical leaders denouncing racism? Their defense of Trump’s indefensible conduct exposes the rot at the core of their movement: racism. Randall Balmer writes that Trump’s promise to appoint antiabortion judges had little to do with the overwhelming support he continues to receive from evangelical Christians, whose most prominent leaders have troubling associations with white supremacist movements and have remained largely silent on the violence in Charlottesville. L.A. Times
His California high school waved the Confederate flag. At Quartz Hill High in Lancaster, the rebel standard fell out of favor — but only in 1995. The Rebel mascot persists, as does the history of the school that remains overwhelmingly white despite the public campus across town having as many black students as whites. Chris McCormick writes: “Confederate history is not tethered to the South. The stars and bars held high by a white terrorist in a photograph taken before he massacred nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., is the same flag hoisted across the hateful shadows of this country, from Virginia to Washington, from New England to California.” L.A. Times
Why is Los Angeles still a segregated city after all these years? In and around the city, the federal government built housing projects that separated whites and blacks during the Great Depression and World War II. Later, local efforts to resist black families moving into mostly white neighborhoods kept African Americans confined to small areas. Practices that prevented black families from buying homes they could afford kept them as renters, and the resulting wealth from property value increases over several decades was accumulated almost totally by whites. “Letting bygones be bygones is not a valid, just or defensible policy,” writes Richard Rothstein. L.A. Times
Keeping America relevant on climate change, post-Paris: In a small office building in Sacramento, a company established during the Obama presidency could make its climate efforts work under Trump. The Western Climate Initiative Inc., which was created to coordinate the emissions-reduction efforts of California and other states with Canadian provinces, could serve as a vehicle for other U.S. states to join international efforts that combat climate change. The Atlantic
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
