The New York Times hopes to incite Republicans to vote for Democrats with a much-noted column published Tuesday, "We Are Republicans. There's Only One Way to Save Our Party From Pro-Trump Extremists."  Written by Miles Taylor and former New Jersey Republican governor Christine Todd Whitman, the article is yet another attack on Trump and "Trumpism."

This year we joined more than 150 conservatives — including former governors, senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, and party leaders — in calling for the Republican Party to divorce itself from Trumpism or else lose our support, perhaps with us forming a new political party. 

Taylor previously appeared on the op-ed page of The New York Times, September 5,  2018, with an anti-Trump screed written anonymously, but claimed to be from a high-ranking official, titled: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."  He was chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security at the time, serving from 2017 to 2019.  On October 20, 2020, he admitted his authorship of the anti-Trump column.

Reading this call on the GOP to hand itself over to the left brought to mind a famous scene in It's a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey (played by James Stewart), at a meeting of the Bailey Business and Loan after the death of his father, stands up to the movie's villain, the banker Henry F. Potter (played by Lionel Barrymore).  Here is the scene, which is a minute and a quarter long:

George defends giving a home loan to cab driver Ernie Bishop, a loan Potter says he turned down.  George asks Potter: "Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars?"  He continued:  "Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.  Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?  Anyway, my father didn't think so.  People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle.  Well, in my book, he died a much richer man than you'll ever be!"

Potter shot back: "I'm not interested in your book.  I'm talking about the Building and Loan."

George replied: "I know very well what you're talking about.  You're talking about something you can't get your hands on, and it's galling you.  That's what you're talking about."

Taylor and Whitman began their column by alluding to the hope that after President Trump was defeated in 2020, "conservative pragmatists" would regain control of the Republican Party.  "But it's become obvious," they asserted, that political extremists maintain a viselike grip on the national and state parties and the process for fielding and championing House and Senate candidates in next year's election."

To borrow from George's remarks to Potter at the Building and Loan board meeting, what's "galling" Taylor and Whitman is the reality that they are unable to "get [their] hands on" the GOP — and given their politically warped frustration, they would rather see the country ruined by Democrat rule than made great again with a majority of conservative populists in the House and Senate and a conservative populist like Donald J. Trump returned to the White House.  

There is a huge difference between conservative "pragmatists" extolled by Taylor and Whitman and the conservative populism that "Trumpism" is really all about.  Populists stand up for the people — the ones who make our great country work.  Pragmatists are the folks who defer to the aggrandizers, who live off the sacrifices of the people.

Taylor and Whitman try to deceive the voters into thinking that there are "moderate Democrats" with whom Republicans can join forces.  Taylor and Whitman even claim that House Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin are moderates.  Do Taylor and Whitman think we are ready to believe that any House Democrat is going to cut her strings to House puppetmaster Nancy Pelosi?  

Taylor and Whitman include Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger "in a small nucleus of courageous Republicans."  What nonsense!  It doesn't take courage to denounce Donald Trump and "Trumpism."  What it takes to attack President Trump and his "Make America Great Again Agenda" is loathing for our birthright of individual liberty and disdain for conservative populists. 

The truth is, these days, when woke-ism threatens to transform America into an authoritarian country ruled by self-anointed elitists like Taylor and Whitman, it takes courage to defend the liberty-loving spirit of America.  It takes courage to stand up for common sense.  It takes courage to distinguish right from wrong.

May the Cheneys and Kinzingers continue as the "small nucleus" Taylor and Whitman say they are, and may their numbers diminish, and may the American people, in 2022, 2024, and thereafter, reject what the Taylors and Whitmans really represent: Potterism, the political movement  that sees the  MAGA-oriented population as "riffraff."

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab (cropped).

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.