The historian Ken Burns used, or perhaps coined, the phrase "Vichy Republicans" in a recent commencement address. This phrase aptly describes those in the GOP who have chosen the path of collaboration with Donald John Trump's seizure of the party rather than the more courageous path of resistance. As in Paris in 1944, after November 2016 those who took the path of resistance will be honored and the collaborators who chose party over country will be shamed .
But we do not have to wait four months to make the collaborators' lives uncomfortable. We can begin now and throughout the campaign to force them to face what they have done. At every opportunity GOP House and Senate candidates should be asked questions about whether they support Trump's outlandish and abhorrent positions. A few suggestions:
•Do you support building a wall on the U.S. - Mexican border? If Mexico will not pay for it, do you support seizing remittances to Mexican families from Mexican immigrants and/or citizens?
•Do you support a ban on Muslim immigrants to the United States? How long should such a ban last? Should it apply to re-entering Muslims who are Green Card holders?
•Do you support racial and ethnic profiling?
•Do you agree that the U.S. should ease the sanctions and other pressure on Russia and cede a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States?
•Do you support Japan and South Korea withdrawing from the non-proliferation Treaty and developing their own nuclear weapons rather than stay under the U.S. nuclear umbrella?
•Do you support the use of torture in the interrogation of Islamic prisoners? Do you favor killing the families of terrorists? Do you support carpet bombing of Islamic State held territory?
•Should Trump release his Income Tax returns? His medical records?
•Do you agree with Trump that the exit of the UK from the European Union is good for America?
•Do you support Trump's position that the U.S. should try to renegotiate our debt so as to not pay in full?
•Which Trump position do you support, that woman who have abortions should face criminal prosecution or that they should not?
2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, columnist George Will Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush , Hank Paulson and Senator Ben Sasse are auditioning for the role of General de Gaulle in this unfolding tragedy .Rnc Chairman Reince Priebus, Senator Mitch McConnell , New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and House Speaker Paul Ryan are competing for the role of Marshal Petain.
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