There are plenty of opinion pieces critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, including those that clearly enunciate and enumerate -- and there is a lot to 'enumerate' -- specific reasons why sane Americans should not vote for this man.
I hasten to admit that most of them are written by 'non-Republicans.'
However, one sees more and more opinion pieces written by respected Conservatives who are very concerned about a Donald Trump nomination.
I am biased, but in my opinion those authors are respectable and responsible Republicans.
One of those Conservatives is Peter Wehner who explained in a recent New York Times article "Why [he] will never vote for Donald Trump."
As noted here, Wehner worked both in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and also for George W. Bush as a speechwriter and adviser. However, while having worked for Republican presidential campaigns in the past, Wehner will sit this one out.
Yes, respected Republicans are speaking out against Trump, but also against the other Republican front-runner, Ted Cruz.
It is not often, however, that one sees a reasoned column by a respected Conservative warning Republicans against both candidates.
In a column at the Washington Post today, Michael Gerson says, "For the good of the Republican party, both Trump and Cruz must lose."
Gerson, previously a top aide to President George W. Bush as assistant to the president for policy and strategic planning, has steadfastly been critical of Trump -- "Trump's nomination would rip the heart out of the Republican Party" -- but he is no fan of Cruz either.
Gerson describes Cruz as representing "the arrival of tea party ideology at the presidential level," espousing "a 'constitutionalism' that would disqualify much of modern government, and a belief that Republican elites are badly, even mainly, at fault for accommodating cultural and economic liberalism."
Focusing on the immigration/deportation proposals of both candidates, Gerson slams Trump's adoption of "an ethno-nationalism in which the constraints of 'political correctness' are lifted to express frankly nativist sentiments: that many illegal immigrants are criminals and rapists who threaten American jobs, and that Muslims are foreign, suspicious and potentially dangerous."
Lamenting that such proposals -- forced expulsion, ban on Muslim immigration -- still lie on the Republican table, "seeming regular and acceptable," Gerson adds:
But they are not acceptable. They are not normal. They are extreme, and obscene and immoral. The Republican nominee -- for the sake of his party and his conscience -- must draw these boundaries clearly.
Gerson, however, saves his harshest criticism for Cruz:
Ted Cruz is particularly ill-equipped to play this role. He is actually more of a demagogue than an ideologue. So he has changed his views on immigration to compete with Trump -- and raised the ante by promising that none of the deported 11 million will ever be allowed back in the country. Instead of demonstrating the humane instincts of his Christian faith -- a faith that motivated abolition and the struggle for civil rights -- Cruz is presenting the crueler version of a pipe dream.
Perhaps Gerson's most notable and ominous line is his last line:
For Republicans, the only good outcome of Trump vs. Cruz is for both to lose. The future of the party as the carrier of a humane, inclusive conservatism now depends on some viable choice beyond them.
The question is: Will a sufficient number of angry, cynical Republicans become participants in this moral race to the bottom to the point that no "viable choice" will even dare to raise its head?