It's Time for the GOP to Have as Much Bravery as the Libertarians

Convicted felons like Donald Trump should not be allowed to run for public office

With Donald Trump recently being convicted on all counts of bribing porn star Stormy Daniels into staying quiet about their brief sexual encounter in an effort to affect the outcome of the 2016 elections, Donald Trump is now a felon. A convicted felon can’t vote nor can a convicted felon run for public office yet Trump is still continuing to run for public office despite his recent felony conviction, along with a whole bunch of other charges that Trump will be facing in the future.

Many of Trump supporters are claiming that Joe Biden is behind this recent court case despite the fact that it’s a case that was brought by the state of New York. Biden has zero control over that case because it’s not a federal case. It’s a state case.

Trump has spoken in the past about how he could pardon himself once he gets reelected. There's the issue of whether any elected official can pardon him/herself. Even if that was possible, Trump was convicted on state charges. Presidents can only issue pardons for those convicted of federal charges.

On top of it, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, had already served time in prison for paying Stormy Daniels in the same case. He only did it on orders from Donald Trump. If a Trump underling had to serve time in prison after he followed orders from Trump then it makes sense for the original ringleader to face the consequences of his actions. Convicting Michael Cohen while leaving Trump alone would be just like trying and convicting only the members of Charles Manson’s cult for their role in the killings of several Los Angeles-area people (including actress Sharon Tate) while leaving Manson alone, even though his cult members were following orders from Manson.

For more factual details on the trial and conviction of Trump, check out this video from Under the Desk News.

Naturally the Trump allies aren't taking the news too well. Hungary's fascist authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán made this tweet in support of Trump.

Then there's the Heritage Foundation, the group that is behind Project 2025, which Trump has said that he will implement if he's elected, has started to fly the American flag upside-down.

It’s so crazy that Trump is still continuing his campaign to become the first president to get elected to two nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland. Let’s forget about the politics for a moment. There are reasons why it has suddenly become untenable for Trump to continue with running for president. First, his sentencing on his felony charges is scheduled for July 11 while the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin on July 15—just four days after the sentencing. If Trump is sentenced to prison, what is the RNC going to do about the convention? Are they going to still formally nominate Trump as the official Republican candidate despite Trump being in prison?

Even if Trump is somehow able to stay out of prison, get the Republican nomination, and get reelected, there are going to be so many problems for him. As a convicted felon, Trump will be prohibited from entering a number of countries, including some of the US strongest allies. He won’t be able to take part in any kind of multi-country conference that would take place outside of the US. He would only be able to engage in talks with another country leader if that leader agrees to travel to Washington, DC to meet Trump at the White House.

And if Trump will have to serve some of his presidency while he is behind bars, Trump is going to have even more challenges. For example, what is Trump going to do about the State of the Union address, where the president addresses Congress in a speech? Doing the State of the Union address is a Constitutional requirement. How will Trump be able to do the State of the Union if he’s still in prison? Would he be allowed to do it via Zoom? Would he be give a one-day release to address Congress? And what about other speeches before Congress or other groups—such as the UN Security Council? Would he be able to get a one-day release to make these speeches?

Like I said earlier, we need to keep the politics out of it. If Joe Biden had been convicted on even one felony crime, I would call for him to not seek a second term in the White House and let the Democratic National Committee deal with who they want to run for president instead of Biden. It's not the politics that I'm concerned about, it's the ability to fulfill the job as president with a felony conviction.

If Donald Trump really cared about this country he would immediately withdraw from the race and let the RNC deal with picking his successor. But, based on reading the tell-all books written by his niece, Mary Trump, and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, it's highly unlikely that he will quit of his own volition because he's the kind of guy who hates to lose at anything. (He has even been accused of cheating at golf on his own courses.) That's why he had never accepted the results of the 2020 election. He would rather claim that the election was stolen from him than admit that he had actually lost.

You can forget about the RNC stepping in to convince Trump to drop out. Trump has literally remade the RNC in his own image, including having his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as one of the co-chairs.

There is one thing that can be done. Have a group of top-ranking Republican lawmakers meet with Trump and issue this ultimatum: They will back a different candidate. Trump can make it easier on himself by withdrawing from the race but regardless of what he does, he will no longer have the support of the Republican Party.

It's not unprecedented. In 1974 three top Republican leaders met with President Richard Nixon warning him that he faced impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal. Nixon resigned the next day.

The big challenge is that it was a different era and today's Republican leadership seems to be scared of Trump. They weren't even able to go through with two impeachments, despite the fact that the second impeachment was for the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill and some lawmakers—both Democrat and Republican—had literally feared for their lives on that day.

But the Republicans need to overcome their fear of Trump and stand up to him. The Libertarians were able to do just that recently when they invited Trump to speak at their convention and he immediately began to pack that speech with his own MAGA supporters by having them take seats that had been reserved for the Libertarian delegates. The Libertarians decided not to take it. They ejected the MAGA supporters from those reserved seats and they openly booed Trump throughout his speech. They also rejected Trump’s suggestion that they nominate him for president on the Libertarian Party ticket.

The difference between the Republicans and the Libertarians is that the latter had realized that they were dealing with a notorious bully like Trump so they quickly grew a spine and stood up to him. If you look at videos of Trump's speech to the Libertarians with the constant booing on YouTube or TikTok, you'd see the dejected look of a person who wasn't able to have everything go his own way for once in his life. This was the look of a person who had long adjusted to people admiring him being faced with a openly hostile crowd who were letting him know how they really felt about him.

In contrast the Republicans had been incredibly deferential towards Trump to the point where they openly fear standing up to him. The only thing I can imagine is that Trump has some kind of kompromat on some of these politicians and they are afraid that he will leak them.

But now is the time for the Republicans to stand up to Trump just like the Libertarians did. They need to do what an earlier generation of Republican lawmakers did to Nixon and tell Trump that his days as a Republican politician are numbered and he needs to quit running for president starting now. And they shouldn't let his most loyal supporters, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, threaten them either.

As to who should run in Trump's place, there are a few options. One is to replace Trump with Nikki Haley, who managed to make a second place finish before she dropped out of the race. But that won't happen (as I previously predicted). The only problem is that, thanks to those in the party who are racists and misogynists, they would have a problem with her for the same reason why they are aghast that Kamala Harris is vice president—she is a woman and a person of color.

Another option is to have a one-day do-over Republican primary where all of the candidates who had previously ran would get another chance at this vote. This primary would be held in all 50 states in one day. Whoever wins the most votes would get the nomination. In the case of no clear winners, then the delegates at the Republican National Convention would vote for whoever gets the nomination.

The mainstream media can do their part as well. So far they've managed to make that conviction front page news, which is great, although they did it in the hopes of increased sales.

(I took that photo of The Washington Post with that “Trump found guilty” headline as it was laying on a table at a local cafe.)

But the media needs to do more. They need to start putting out the message that Trump needs to quit his campaign. This could be done with newspaper editorials and making it the subject of political talk shows. They should do it as a way of atoning for all those years of deferential coverage of Trump since they considered him to be so entertaining. So far I've only encountered editorials in The Washington Monthly and The Guardian calling for Trump to drop out of the campaign. This message needs to be repeated in more and more media outlets so people will be convinced that Trump is no longer a viable politician.

Claudia Conway, the daughter of onetime Trump Administration official Kellyanne Conway and frequent Trump critic George Conway had this to say about the whole MAGA cult that had sprung up around Donald Trump: “We should not idolize politicians for that matter. It's weird. These aren't your favorite athletes or musical artists; these are candidates for the presidency. Crazy thought but maybe we shouldn't be rallying behind a felon or anyone without our best interest with our all? Anyone? Can anyone hear me....”

The bottom line is that Donald Trump needs to get out of the race soon for the sake of the United States.

My blog is free to subscribe but if you want to make a comment, you’ll need to take out a paid subscription. Click on the button below for more details.