Opinion: Trump’s MAGA Republicans bear no resemblance to Republican Party of Ronald Reagan
In 1980, I excitedly cast my first vote for president of the United States. I supported Republican Ronald Reagan. I believed in his vision of America as a global leader defending democracy from the forces of communism and totalitarianism associated at the time with the Soviet Union and Communist China. I believed in the strength of free markets to drive capitalist economies that made the United States the world’s leading economy. I also believed that from these privileged global positions, the United States incurred immense responsibilities to be a force for good. Over the past nearly 45 years my views have changed only in the sense that I have come to believe that America’s post-World War II supremacy created an even more important responsibility to embrace the globalism we have authored through our military, economic and political relations.
These principles of global leadership and free markets, combined with the staunch belief in the rule of law and small government, have been the central pillars of the Republican Party for the majority of my adult life. Imagine my surprise in recent years to be informed that belief in these doctrinal principles of Republican orthodoxy bestows upon you the label “Republican In Name Only,” aka RINO. Donald Trump’s creation of this label to identify any member of the Republican Party who did not whole-heartedly support his agenda is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reality is that the current Republican Party, as defined and operated by the Republican National Committee, is in fact the imposter. Trump’s MAGA Republicans bear no resemblance to the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. Sadly, the remaining vestiges of Reagan’s Party are quickly being erased.
The election of Trump loyalist, Michael Whatley, and Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chairs of the RNC and appointment of one of his senior campaign advisors, Chris LaCivita, as RNC’s chief operating officer have finalized the codification of the Trump National Committee, aka RINO. The tenets of this organization seek to roll up the American sidewalk, turn out the porchlight and withdraw the United States into a self-serving cocoon. Belying the historical record and extensive social science research that asserts that democracies are far less likely to go to war with other democracies, thus underlying the related principle that the promotion of democracy leads to more peaceful global coexistence, the Trump National Committee is ceding global leadership to authoritarian/totalitarian power brokers Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. In its tragically mistaken belief that the United States can succeed as an island free of global encumbrances, the Trump National Committee has designs on imposing crippling tariffs on a vast array of imports from our leading trading partners around the globe. For an example of just how misguided this idea is, take a trip to the wheat belt of the United States and speak to any of the hundreds of family farmers who were forced out of business as a result of China’s retaliatory agriculture tariffs during the first Trump Administration. The United States is tied to the global economy as tightly as a diver to his oxygen tank. This is not a new development. It has been the framework of America’s economic history for most of our national history. Why the Trump National Committee and all of its political minions refuse to acknowledge this reality is not only foolhardy, but also inherently dangerous for the health and prosperity of this country.
These internationally focused issues pale in comparison to the centrality of the ardent Republican (and Democrat) belief in the sanctity of the rule of law and the corollary that no man is above the law. To say that the Trump National Committee has closed the barn door after the horse has escaped on this issue is a monumental understatement. Whether it be the continued rehashing of his 2020 Election Big Lie of election fraud or his ongoing campaign to argue that presidents must have complete immunity, Trump is convinced that he is indeed above the law. More than 60 court defeats on the election front have done nothing to quiet his victim rants. Belief in the nobility and legitimacy of Trump’s disdain for the rule of law are now essential qualifications for membership in the Trump National Committee.
The Republican Party of my youth is dead. Next time you hear RINO, just remember, the speaker is actually referring to a member of the Trump National Committee, not some long forgotten adherent to Reagan’s Republican Party.
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Brad Gutierrez, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Air Force combat pilot, professor of Political Science, military diplomat, and senior public policy civil servant. He is currently a woodworker and non-fiction writer based in Marshall.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: The real RINOs are members of the Trump National Committee
