Today on The BradCast we try to reach out to so many of those Republicans and Trump dead-enders that we hear from usually only after the show. That, before Tuesday primaries and runoffs in in Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Washington D.C., and amid the short pause before hearings in the House J6 Committee return (tomorrow), and as the number of those who believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his attempt to steal the 2020 election continues to grow.
If we are going to save American democracy from the minority autocratic rule now sought by the bulk of the Republican Party, we need to try, at least, to speak to each other again. Even to those who have been so thoroughly groomed, for so many years — by Fox “News”, by rightwing talk radio, by elected Republican officials — to actually believe the GOP lies that have convinced those Americans to vote against their own best interests in election after election. We must reach out, somehow, to those that still buy into Donald Trump’s evidence-free claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him (as he, himself, had tried to steal it) or who were duped into sending part of the quarter of a billion bucks to his “Official Election Defense Fund” even though, as we recently learned thanks to the bipartisan J6 Committee, doesn’t even exist.
So, today, in hopes of at least trying to reach some of those voters, we thought we’d share the thoughts of some longtime conservative Republican voices. Among them, the very conservative former federal appeals court judge, J. Michael Luttig who, for years, had been compared to Justices Scalia and Thomas, who 33 of Luttig’s former clerks would eventually clerk for. Last week, Luttig testified to the House Select Committee, warning that Donald Trump and the Republican party remain a “clear and present danger” to American democracy, not only because of the January 6th insurrection or due to Trump’s attempt to, as Luttig wrote [PDF], “steal the 2020 presidential election from the American people,” but because “the former President, his allies and supporters pledged that they would attempt to overthrow that 2024 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.” He is now calling on Republican leaders to step up to end their “war on democracy.”
Also, we share a critical, must-listen commentary from former young Republican James Killen (pictured above) hoping to reach current young Republicans to keep them from making the same mistakes he did by letting them know how they’ve been lied to by the GOP about…well, pretty much everything, from top to bottom over the past 40 years.
Then, after an invitation to the many rightwingers who do listen to The BradCast — which we know, because they so frequently contact me right after the show via Email or Twitter — we open the phone lines to at least one long time Republican who is still buying in to the lies….apparently all of them, as we discuss. If we don’t at least try to have these conversations, we will never end this new American uncivil war.
And where will it go from here if we don’t? Well, a new campaign ad from the disgraced former Missouri Governor turned GOP primary candidate for U.S. Senate, Eric Greitens — in which he wields a firearm and calls on fellow Republicans to go “RINO (Republican in Name Only) hunting” — should give you a pretty good, and chilling, idea…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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States are changing their laws so that the vote of the people is not the final say. That is not democracy. The Electoral College determines who is to become president in most cases, but most often the majority vote is meaningless. That is not democracy. “The constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says” is not “the constitution says what the voting citizenry says it says”, and thus another thing that is not a democracy.
Changing the meanings of words to suit one’s wishes, hopes, and aspirations is metaphorical in an untidy way IMO (Metaphors We Live By).
The Killen rant is powerful. I don’t know how he ever got fooled in the past. He is spot on!
I hope everybody finds it and watches it too. It’s intense!