Making America Great Again

Republicans. We have a job to do. It’s a hard and a nasty job, but it’s our job. 

There are three kinds of Republicans that want to bury the memory of the reality of President Donald Trump. There are the moderates who simply want to find public policies that satisfy the busy majority that exists in the middle of two frustrating electoral extremes. 

There are the Christians and Catholics, exhausted defending the brand from the orange shadow looming over all our tickets – a President who has bragged about grabbing women by their vaginas, who has bragged that he could shoot someone in Manhattan and keep his supporters, who has referred to women as pigs, immigrants as un-American, and his fellow Republicans as “human scum.” 

Finally, there are freedom-lovers, who abhor the Presidents’ trade war, executive orders, and foreign policy that involves placing American heroes at the beck and call of the House of Saud. There are also millions of us horrified by trillion-dollar deficits predicated upon budgets written by Republicans and signed by this Republican President. 

However, the majority of Republicans remain focused on fighting the Democrats. They do this even though Democrats continue to ride President Trump’s coattails to power. They do this even though more and more educated people, more and more women, and more and more young urban professionals are rejecting the Party of Trump. 

Virginians continue to question why Democrats are seeing more success in the Bible Belt. Well, when Republicans are more loyal to a political strong man than they are to their faith, their values, their morals, and their country – no one should be surprised by the confusion that ensues. 

Donald Trump has been good for the economy and he has been good for those who want to expose and hurt the people that vote for Democrats. Donald Trump has raised more money for Democrats than any other Republican in history. President Donald Trump has created more Democrats than Reagan, H.W., or W. Bush combined. 

It is entirely possible that Trump’s insane trade war will work and that we, for a short period of time, will leverage our strength over China. ISIS is on the run. Russia is stuck in the mud. North Korea struggles for headlines or influence. Iran is getting desperate. The Paris Climate tax seems unlikely to pan out. Planned Parenthood has lost millions of dollars in support. Rural America and the Rust Belt are finally enjoying the ability to flex political muscles. 

All of these victories would have been possible and palatable under a President Cruz or Rubio, but we chose a President that admires his daughter’s sexuality and brags about his excessive sexual exploits instead. We chose yet another President that associated himself with Jeffrey Epstein (who didn’t kill himself). We chose a President with the audacity to mock men like General John F. Kelly and General James N. Mattis. We’ve watched as Republican icons like Rudy Giuliani and Rand Paul have contradicted everything they stood for and represented, leaving their true believers heart broken and apathetic. 

Let’s be honest with ourselves. There are two types of people capable of stomaching Donald Trump: There are those bitter bastions of bigoted whites who have envied the identity politics of Democrats and enjoyed the white identity politics of Trump and there are those who are simply so afraid of Democratic/Socialist power that they’d vote for the devil himself if it meant fighting infanticide, higher taxes, and the Christian-Conservative culture war, to the death. 

If we don’t want to end up with a far left-wing government in Virginia, we’re going to have to defeat the populists and nationalists within our own party before we ever have a chance of defeating the Democrats. We tried to play nice and to tolerate the populists in Virginia, in hopes of retaining our majorities, our access to public policy, and some level of self-respect. 

Now that we have neither power nor self-respect, we have nothing to lose in Virginia. There is absolutely no reason not to declare war against the Corey Stewarts of the Republican Party of Virginia – and I mean all-out war. There is no reason not to light up every single Republican committee in every single county of Virginia in the hopes of eliminating Trump’s influence wherever we might find it. 

There is absolutely no reason to worry about Democrats when we have to deal with a Republican Party that hardly any of us are interested in defending in the first place. 

Every county committee has one job. Destroy the populists. Destroy the nationalists. Destroy the Trumpublicans. 

Those of you who were once TEA Party … 

… those of you who were once anti-Establishment …

… all of you who loved liberty and joined with Republicans to fight for something …

… you have an opportunity to make a difference again. 

Eliminate the Trump supporters from the Republican Party. Entrench yourselves in the infrastructure. Establish a coalition of moderates, libertarians, and pragmatists. Create a Republican Party that deserves the support of moral men and women. 

Defeat Trump and reclaim the right to represent the moral majority. 

Then … and only then, will we have a right and opportunity to return Republican power to Richmond.