As America enters what’s sure to be the most divisive four months in modern history, our two senators could lead a movement to arrange a peaceful settlement of the looming political crisis. A possible solution is beginning to make the rounds of pundits and operatives, but it needs congressional Republican leadership to make it happen.
The biggest issue facing the country is Donald Trump. For so many well-documented reasons, the president is failing. His behavior and decision-making have drawn scorn and ridicule during his entire tenure, both here and abroad, but his party has marched lockstep behind him presumably in the hope that eventually he would deliver on their agenda. That hope is vanishing; most of his signature initiatives have come to naught. Almost daily, more high-profile Republicans defect, and his support among voters has steadily withered from the 46% that got him elected to the current 40%. His willful bungling of the coronavirus crisis, and the resulting economic crash, was the last straw.
Trump is going down and he knows it. He continues to ignore advice on changes that could save him. He has no goals for a second term. He’s whiny and aggrieved, and already promoting a narrative of voter fraud to excuse his defeat. Republicans in Congress fear that he’s taking them down with him.
Our senators could possibly save him from the humiliation of a rout in November. How? By enlisting their colleagues to join with them to contact Trump, praise him for all his (imagined) successes, and insist that he drop out of the race. He can declare “my work here is done,” commission a statue of himself for his Garden of Heroes, and return to his true calling in reality TV. It’s not as far-fetched as at first it might seem. What he dreads most is being viewed as a failure. If our senators would step up now, they could shake some of the shame of their past servility, and maybe even save the Republican Party.
Terry Johnson
Anchorage
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