Wednesday, May 12, House Republican voted to boot Liz Chaney from their number three leadership position.  From TV news and the internet, I gather this rebuff was triggered by Cheney’s repeated assertions Donald J. Trump did not win America’s 2020 Presidential election.  The incontrovertible fact is, Joe Biden was duly elected America’s forty-sixth President!  Virtually all the Representatives voting to oust Cheney know this.  So, why be seen as irrational or fools?

I understand maybe half of Republicans, thirty percent of Americans, swallow Trump’s bogus claim of election fraud.  Apparently, in paying lip service to the former President, Senators and Representatives hope to snag these votes in the future.  In my view, if Liz’s insurrection does or does not get traction, folks who continue supporting Donald’s “Big Steal” lie will be sucked down in his inevitable death spiral.

Pluralistic government demands more than one robust political party.  America needs intelligent, sane Republicans.  They are here.

CBS News found that a fifth of Republicans oppose Liz’s removal.  Republican Representatives Ken Buck, Jamie Herrera Butler, Anthony Gonzales, John Katko, Adam Kitzinger, Peter Meijer, Dan Newhouse, Tom Rice, Fred Upton and David Valadao joined Liz in voting to impeach Trump.  Republican Senators Richard M. Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse and Patrick J. Toome voted to impeach.  More than 100 Republicans, including former officeholders, have signed a “A Call For American Renewal,” imploring the Republican Party, “to rededicate itself to founding ideals—or else hasten the creation of an alternative.”

Charles Sykes’s How the Right Lost Its Mind, which I have not read, appears to addresses the current Republican party’s dilemma.  According to an online synopsis, Sykes asks, “How did a movement that was defined by its beliefs in limited government, individual liberty, free markets, traditional values, and civility find itself embracing bigotry, political intransigence, demagoguery, and outright falsehood?”  An online Kirkus Review answers: “Sometime in the last decade,” writes Sykes, “conservative commentator Matt Drudge began linking to a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.  By doing so, he broke down the wall that separated the full-blown cranks from the mainstream conservative media, injecting a toxic worldview into the Right’s bloodstream. The conservative movement never recovered.”