Should Republicans Purge Donald Trump?

Establishment Republicans are calling for a purge of Donald Trump and his followers from the Republican Party. (You can read the full story here.) Aren’t these the same people who advocate and champion the “Big Tent” approach? Apparently, their idea of the “Big Tent” applies only if moderates can (1) define Republican beliefs and/or (2) maintain custody and control of the tent. In my opinion, the Republican National Committee (RNC) would make a tragic mistake to send Donald Trump and his followers packing. Fortunately, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus understands the big picture, the macro-view of politics: “[We need to] start building a party through the concept of addition and multiplication not division and subtraction.” Evangelicals will most likely not vote to nominate Mr. Trump as the Republican nominee for president in 2016. He has too many structural problems. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump’s throwing a monkey wrench into the early coronation of a moderate Republican in 2016 is advantageous, because many conservatives feel that Establishment Republicans have taken them for a ride for the last quarter century. Evangelical and pro-life Catholic Christians are just about fed-up with the doublespeak from moderate, Establishment Republicans who will run as conservatives in order to be elected, only to then govern as Barack Obama. Saying one thing but doing the opposite-we’ve got a name for that: hypocrisy. For example, take the feeble and timid leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner. Mark Steyn hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “I describe Republicans as a party of seat-warmers-until the pendulum swings and the Dems come roaring back. When the left wins, they’re in power; when the right wins, they’re in office, and that’s all.” Combine McConnell and Boehner, and the failure of the last two Republican presidential establishment nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain, and one begins to understand why Republicans have lost the popular vote in the last five of six presidential elections. The present day Establishment Republicans will tolerate Evangelical and pro-life Catholic Christians taking part in the “Big Tent” as long as they don’t bring Bbiblical, conservative values and principles to the tenets of the Grand Old Party. And as a reminder to those who are too young to remember (or those of us getting old enough to start forgetting), it is worth repeating that President Ronald Reagan won his re-election landslide in 1984–winning 49 states!–by running on principle and moral absolutes. President Reagan then passed the baton to George H.W. Bush in 1988, with his “read my lips: no new taxes” pledge as the centerpiece in his ’88 acceptance speech. Bush then violated his word. The words of Bush-41 were then used against him by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in 1992 in a devastating attack ad in the presidential campaign. This not only killed the 1992 campaign of Bush-41, but it also brought ruin to the “brand” bequeathed to the Republican Party by President Reagan: limited government, lower taxes, deregulation of business, and the attitude of “the-one-thing-government-can-do-for-me-is-leave-me-alone.” Remember Machiavelli’s formula: “Political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of the ruler.” This has been the political theory deployed in the last quarter century to win elections and maintain power by the moderate, Establishment Republicans. And this political philosophy has cost the Republican presidential nominee the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. The 168 Republican National Committee members battle is not only for control of structure, rules, and procedures, but, more importantly, for control of resources and ideological supremacy. Someone’s values are going to reign supreme. The battle for the soul of the Republican Party may be boiled down to the clash between Christianity and secularism, those with Biblical values and character vs. secularists lacking a moral compass, righteousness against unrighteousness. We need a Gideon or Rahab the Harlot to make a stand.