Is It Time To Form A New Party? How About A “Constitution Party”?

By Donald A. Collins | 10 January 2022
Church and State

(Credit: Dreamstime.com)

Fareed Zakaria’s Sunday 9pm January 9th documentary on CNN entitled “The Fight to Save American Democracy” proved to be the capstone of several other powerful documentary programs on CNN and PBS seeking to alert Americans to the threat of the takeover of our democratic nation by the Trump dominated Republican Party. Zakaria’s documentary will run again and I strongly recommend watching it.

Unique about Zakaria’s program was his precise and effective telling of history about how Hitler rose in Germany in the 1930s with the misguided support of Germany’s conservatives who hated liberals and thought they could control Hitler, who after becoming Chancellor on January 30, 1933 quickly installed his dictatorship. That history you can read here.

The obvious parallels with what Trump and his acolytes are now attempting frightens anyone who sees their lies to voters and their massive voting law changes now underway in states controlled by Republican legislatures which will restrict voting in a variety of ways including mail in ballots and maybe ensure Trump’s 2024 Presidential run win. That the November 3, 2020 election was fair and accurate was proven by numerous audits and confirmed by the countless courts to which Trump’s lawyers appealed.

Now in our nineties my wife and I require some limited nursing assistance. I asked our young helper last night if she knew anything about Adolph Hitler and she said she did not.

To those of us who lived through the WWII era, her answer proved stunning. I suspect her ignorance among the young or among immigrant newcomers is not unique.

The Trump cancer that has killed any pretense of morality or governing validity in his party has now been admitted often in public out of the perpetrators’ own mouths. “ If you don’t want to lose your country” he said as he importuned his followers on January 6th to charge the Capitol. Guess that evidence of self-incrimination doesn’t apply if you are a President dissatisfied with losing? Read his full blown harangue speech here.

We await the House Commission’s January 6th report, but we know from the comments of many lawyers that justice for Trump’s treasonous criminal behavior is unlikely to put this felon or many of his co-conspirators in jail.

It is time, as in 1856 when the new Republican Party ran California’s John C. Fremont as its first candidate and lost, for the few prominent number of honorable Republicans today to start a new party that would salve their consciences and insure the legacies of such brave partisans!

As you know, the 1860 Republican candidate was Abraham Lincoln whose initial political mantra as the Civil War began was to keep the Union together. The history of his coming to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 can be read here.

Let’s face it, nothing can apparently be done to change Trump or his animus toward democracy, but making sure of his permanent defeat must be our democracy’s most important goal. Voting rights are key to keeping our democracy and since the last election proved the system was working very well we must insure that so called efforts by Republicans to fix what isn’t broken cannot occur. Yes, we must confront Trump’s claim of election fraud and stop his steal!!

The time has perhaps come for a new party. Its name might be the Constitution Party since our upholding the beliefs of our founding fathers starts with the Constitution.

For example, what if Liz Chaney and the other Republicans who early saw and spoke harshly and bravely about Trump’s Hitler like path toward authoritarian governance could now make a courageous stand for democracy. By going this new way the split of Republican votes would likely draw many moderate Republican and independent voters (41 percent of those polled by Gallup in November 2020 claimed independent status) to put our democracy’s survival ahead of winning the 2022 or 2024 elections which our country can’t afford to lose.

Republican Presidential candidate Fremont lost in 1856, Lincoln won in 1860, but it took a bloody war to keep our union together.

It will take much more time after 2024 to excise most of Trump’s cancer from our country, but a fresh start toward rebuilding a vital strong 2 party system likely must begin with a new national party. Any takers?

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?” and “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?: Leaders Commit to Reduce Human Population”.

Looking Ahead To The Future of American Democracy

January 6th Attack Reveals Foundational Obstacles To U.S. Democracy

How A Right-Wing Faction Uncomfortable With Democracy Got More Power Within GOP

How a ‘mass movement’ based on election lies is threatening American democracy

Republicans Lay The Groundwork To Subvert the 2024 Election

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