If Donald Trump Shot Someone On Fifth Avenue Or Had Mike Pence Hanged At The Capitol . . . .*

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I have been a harsh critic of the GOP and its steep descent into an abyss from a party with a platform of conservative values that placed the constitutional order foremost. Still, I may have underestimated the depth and consequences of the GOP’s moral and intellectual collapse. At the Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing on June 16, 2022, conservative former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, a giant among conservative voices, addressed the clear and present danger and the continuing treachery Trump, his allies, enablers, and supporters present in their ambitious plan to steal America’s democracy. Equally unsettling, and unrealistic, is his solution to saving the Republic: “Though disinclined for the moment, as a political matter of fact only the party that instigated this war over our democracy can bring an end to that war.” Transcript of Judge Luttig’s statement to Jan. 6 Select Committee at 1.

Since its timely publication in 2017, I have read and re-read Timothy Snyder’s ON TYRANNY. An expert in Twentieth Century European history, Snyder packs his short book with warnings and their signs that resulted in twenty years of fascist and seventy of communist rule in Europe. He explained: “Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated…