GOP has lost a lot in following Trump's course

Anyone hoping Republican voters around the country would use Super Tuesday to slow their party’s careening trajectory toward the Trumpian cliff now must face facts: It’s over.

Donald Trump’s near-total sweep of Super Tuesday states, and challenger Nikki Haley’s subsequent campaign suspension last Wednesday, means that, barring some epic surprise, American voters on Nov. 5 will be faced with a presidential rematch that most don’t want.

Even among the many Republicans out there who recognize Trump’s obvious unfitness for office, there will be a strong temptation to fall back on partisan muscle-memory and vote for him anyway.

To any of those who are still reachable, we’d ask a minute of your time to consider a counter-argument as the two-way race begins in earnest:

The Party of Reagan is dead. It has been replaced with something unrecognizable. It’s built around not traditional Republican values, but the self-serving hubris of one autocracy-minded ex-president and a MAGA movement that is part populist, part cult of personality and entirely hostile toward any expression of democracy that doesn’t bolster its own power.

Republicans and conservatives of good conscience who can’t bring themselves to vote for President Joe Biden — fine — should at least consider any alternative that doesn’t give a vote to this unstable, malicious man and his dangerous movement.

The threat here goes far beyond policy or partisanship. That should be evident to anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s entire political career, but especially its arc since he tried to overthrow the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.

He followed that irredeemable violation of his oath with suggestions that the Constitution should be suspended to return him to office, that his political enemies should be executed, that the American military should be used against American protesters, and that he should enjoy “complete and total immunity” — for life — for crimes committed while in office.

None of this is wild speculation from Trump’s political enemies. These are all publicly expressed notions from Trump’s own mouth, his social-media thumbs and his defense strategy in criminal court.

Any honest assessment of Trump’s hold on the party must acknowledge that the policy issues that traditionally have unified Republicans are now an aside, at best.

Trump’s tough on the border … yet he personally sabotaged a bipartisan border agreement that gave Republicans virtually their every demand, because he wanted politically useful chaos instead.

He’s tough on inflation … yet he vows to slap global trading partners with tariffs that will drive up prices for American consumers.

The list of other long-held Republican principles and goals sacrificed on the MAGA altar is too long to thoroughly explore here. A sample includes fiscal responsibility (Trump’s administration added an unprecedented $8.4 trillion to the federal debt), defense of global democracy (Trump has led the GOP’s shameful movement toward abandoning Ukraine to Russia), law and order (91 indictments) and “family values” (why even discuss it?).

What the GOP has lost in substantive policy cred under Trump, it has also lost in tolerance, civility and (dare we say it?) class.

For those who understand this, but who, for whatever reason, can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden, we get it.

We suggest a write-in vote that would make an important point for serious Republicans: “Ronald Wilson Reagan.”

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch