Top Republicans know better than to back Trump

LZ Granderson, Tribune News Service

When it comes to disaster movies, my biggest pet peeve is the intimate scene. As soon as a Diane Warren song starts playing in the background, the male and female leads will lock eyes and suddenly decide they have time to cuddle. “Saving the planet” loses all sense of urgency.  That’s what it feels like watching Republicans today refuse to endorse Kamala Harris because of the optics. They can see as well as anyone else that former President Trump is a threat to democracy. He says it openly. But apparently when members of the GOP look at their chances of holding on to power, the romantic music in their heads just sweeps them away.

Take Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. If anyone knows how far Trump will go to grab power, it’s him. Trump has been harassing him ever since losing the state to President Biden by 11,779 votes back in 2020. We heard Trump’s phone call with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. We saw the indictment (though whether the Fulton County district attorney can continue to prosecute it remains in limbo). Trump’s allies tried to use fake electors to pretend he won the state.

Kemp followed the law and common sense and certified the real electors, which gave Biden the state’s 16 electoral votes.  We’re still hearing about Trump’s grudge, most recently in a long rant at a campaign stop in Georgia.

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said on Saturday about Kemp, who has a 63% approval rating in his state — and whom Trump endorsed for governor in 2018.  If anyone knows of the danger that Trump represents, it’s Kemp. And yet the governor responded to that latest barrage with a social media post supporting Trump’s campaign: “my focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats — not engaging in the petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past.”

That’s how he characterized Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. Dwelling on the past. His wife, Marty Kemp, is so worried about what Trump would do if he regained power that she said she is going to write in her husband’s name for president instead of voting for Trump. Oh, great. Such bravery.

Kemp is expected to run for Senate, so perhaps what we’re seeing is that his political future matters more to him than the country’s future does. He wouldn’t want to be seen endorsing a Democrat, even when the alternative is a felon whom Kemp has personally seen attempting to overthrow American democracy.

The public spat between Kemp and Trump prompted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to beg the two to work things out. As if there’s some sort of acceptable middle ground between democracy and a failed coup d’etat.

The political maneuverings from folks who used to say “never Trump” — such as Graham and Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — would not be possible without a healthy dose of cowardice.

Harris, like most politicians, will have to answer for positions she has taken in the past and may no longer support. But one stance she hasn’t changed is on the importance of protecting a free and fair election. On the day of the Jan. 6 attack, Harris’ motorcade came within 20 feet of the pipe bomb planted the day before outside the Democratic National Committee’s office. Authorities still don’t know who placed that one or the similar device found at the Republican National Committee’s headquarters.

We are not in ordinary times. Many conservatives know this firsthand. And yet despite understanding the urgency that the moment calls for, they continue to make time to play politics, like the romantic leads in a doomsday flick. At least most of them do.

This week a new group launched, called Republicans for Harris. It’s an effort to make it OK for conservatives to do all that they can to stop someone who tried to overturn the election from having another crack at becoming king. Among the most important strategies, of course, is voting for Trump’s opponent. Many Americans who tend to vote Republican will be reluctant.

The Kemps of the world aren’t helping, but consider the record of Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. He has waffled at moments but mostly seems to have seen Trump for what he is and been bold enough to say so.

During the primary in 2016, Romney recorded robocalls in support of Marco Rubio and John Kasich, encouraging voters to vote for “a candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton and who can make us proud.” After Chris Christie endorsed Trump, Romney reportedly wrote Christie him an email saying Trump is “unquestionably mentally unstable, and he is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar and prone to violence.”

In 2018, Romney accepted Trump’s endorsement for the Senate. But in 2021 he voted for impeachment. Outlining his reasoning in a statement, Romney said the former president “attempted to corrupt the election by pressuring the Secretary of State of Georgia to falsify the elections results in his state” and “incited the insurrection against Congress by using the power of his office.”

Romney and Christie are like many Republicans who knew the danger of Trump before he became president but chose party over country. Members of Republicans for Harris, and the half-dozen former Trump Cabinet members who refuse to endorse him, have decided not to make that mistake twice. Other politicians, such as Graham and Kemp, do not care what happens to democracy as long as their careers survive.