When it comes to disaster movies, the thing that bothers me the most is the sex scenes. As soon as a Diane Warren song starts playing in the background, the male and female leads lock eyes and suddenly decide they have time to hug. “Saving the Planet” loses all sense of urgency.
Opinion columnist
Granderson Landing Station
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and navigating life in America.
That’s what it feels like to see Republicans today refusing to endorse Kamala Harris over image concerns. They can see as well as anyone else that former President Trump is a threat to democracy. He says it openlyBut apparently, when members of the Republican Party consider their chances of staying in power, the romantic music that resonates in their heads carries them away.
Take Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. If anyone knows how far Trump will go to seize power, it's him. Trump has been hounding him since he lost the state to President Biden by 11,779 votes in 2020. We listened to Trump's phone call with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. We watched the impeachment (though if the Fulton County District Attorney can continue (The legal process remains in limbo.) Trump's allies attempted to use fake electors. To pretend that the state won.
Kemp followed the law and common sense and certified the true electorswhich gave Biden the state's 16 electoral votes.
We still hear about Trump's rancor, most recently in a lengthy speech at a campaign rally in Georgia.
“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very mediocre governor,” Trump said Saturday of Kemp, who has a 63% approval rating in his state and whom Trump endorsed for governor in 2018.
If anyone knows the danger Trump represents, it’s Kemp. And yet the governor responded to that latest barrage of criticism with a social media post supporting Trump’s campaign: “My goal is to win this November and save our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats, not engage in petty personal insults, attack fellow Republicans, or dwell on the past.”
That’s how he described Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results. Thinking back. His wife, Marty Kemp, is so worried about what Trump would do if he regained power that she said she’s going to write in her husband’s name for president instead of voting for Trump. Oh, great. How brave.
Kemp is expected to run for the Senate, so perhaps what we're seeing is that his political future matters more to him than the future of the country. He wouldn't want to be seen supporting a Democrat, even when the alternative is a criminal whom Kemp has personally seen trying to overthrow American democracy.
The public spat between Kemp and Trump prompted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to plead with them to work things out, as if there were some sort of acceptable middle ground between democracy and a failed coup.
The political maneuverings of people who used to say “never Trump” — like Graham and Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio — would not be possible without a healthy dose of cowardice.
Harris, like most politicians, will have to answer for positions she has taken in the past and may no longer support. But one stance that has not changed is the importance of protecting a free and fair election. On the day of the Jan. 6 attack, Harris's motorcade came within 20 feet of The bomb placed the day before in front of the Democratic National Committee office.. Authorities I do not know yet who planted this or that similar device found at the Republican National Committee headquarters.
These are not normal times. Many conservatives know this firsthand. And yet, despite understanding the urgency of the moment, they still find time to play politics, like romantic leads in an apocalyptic movie. At least, most of them do.
A new group called Republicans for Harris was created this week. It's an effort by conservatives to do everything they can to prevent someone who tried to overturn the election from having another chance at becoming king. One of the most important strategies, of course, is to vote for Trump's opponent. Many Americans who tend to vote Republican will be reluctant.
The Kempses of the world aren't helping, but consider the record of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). He has wavered at times, but generally seems to have seen Trump for what he is and has been brave enough to say so.
During the 2016 primaries, Romney recorded robocalls in support of Marco Rubio and John Kasich, encouraging voters to vote for “a candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton and who can make us proud.” After Chris Christie endorsed Trump, Romney is said to have written to Christie He sent her an email saying that Trump is “unquestionably mentally unstable, and is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar, and prone to violence.”
In 2018, Romney accepted Trump’s endorsement for the Senate, but in 2021 he voted to impeach. In a statement, Romney explained his reasoning, saying the former president “attempted to corrupt the election by pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to falsify the election results in his state” and “incited an insurrection against Congress using the power of his office.”
Romney and Christie are like many Republicans who knew the danger Trump posed before he was president, but chose party over country. Members of Republicans for Harris and the half-dozen former Trump cabinet members who refuse to support him have decided not to make that mistake twice. Other politicians, like Graham and Kemp, don’t care what happens to democracy as long as their careers survive.
