Something that is true, but that you won't read about, at least very often, is how panicked Republicans are in Washington, DC. What I'm talking about is the panic of the party's pollsters and election strategists. They see the writing on the wall. They know what's coming down the pike. They know what it means when Kari Lake is back. The loony conspiracy theorist who was defeated in the Arizona gubernatorial election, now has her sights set on the United States Senate, where she can be Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene times five. Republicans understand that Donald Trump is going off the rails. Look at his behavior. This man seeks again to be the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in human history. He wants control of America's nuclear weapons arsenal. By any objective measurement, any standard, his conduct has become completely deranged. His attacks on the federal judges and judiciary, his attacks and threats against the prosecutor in Atlanta, whom he accused of having an affair with a gang member -- it's important to note that's not accidental. The Atlanta prosecutor is tough as nails. A Black woman. He's disrespecting her, insulting her, degrading her. The attack is racist. The attack is stereotypical. Everything that you would expect from Donald Trump. He went to New Hampshire, and he railed against Chris Christie, who has moved into a tie for second place. He is on track to win the New Hampshire primary. Donald Trump engaged the former governor from New Jersey, calling him a "fat pig." He is lashing out. He is decomposing. This is what 100 felony counts will do to a person. And that's likely the number will be up around when all is said and done as Donald Trump heads to the trials. According to the polling, and perhaps more importantly, media outlets interpretation of it, Americans are apparently tuned out to the wall-to-wall Trump trial coverage. The media is interpreting this as meaning the American people are numb or uncaring about the trials. I think this is wrong. Deeply wrong. What the American people aren't necessarily in the mood for in the middle of summer is wall-to-wall talking about the trial, between motions, between any activity that's repetitive, that's banal, tedious, and exceedingly boring. When the trials begin, and there is action to cover and to report on as the events are taking place, I think it is safe to say the American people will be highly engaged. Part of what is broken in American politics is the lifecycle that exists between the media and the politicians. The constant presence of these people in our faces is leading the American people to turn off their televisions, to unplug their cable boxes, the coverage of the Donald Trump's story, as it moves into its eighth year. As we approach the decade mark, it hqs become brutally tedious. What is it that we're supposed to talk about -- day after day after day -- when you consider his depravity, his treachery, his treason against the United States of America? Republicans in Washington, DC, the ones who run the elections, are deeply panicked. Alexander Bolton of the Hill newspaper has written a nearly perfect lead describing the feeling in Washington, DC, amongst the MAGA Republicans at this hour. What they see coming down the road is Kari Lake coming back. They see the Arizona conspiracy theorist and loon who lost the gubernatorial election keyed up and ready for a US Senate race. They know the incredibly high price that has been paid up and down the ballot for Trump, sycophancy. They know the cost of the appeasement, of the collaboration, of the moral cowardice. They know the cost of what it looks like when these candidates are made to seem idiotic under questioning that they can't keep straight. They can't walk the fine line between being for and against Trump. They can't possibly make the case that they support and defend the Constitution of the United States, while standing next to the man who tried to burn it down. They can't be on the wrong side of Mike Pence, who said, "I'll always pick the Constitution," meaning in his choice between Trump and America, he went with America. What will their choice be? The extremis threat facing America has been cooking now for a very, very long time. It has been inflamed by social media, by the ubiquity of Trump's presence, by his ability at any moment to, with his fingers, divide, antagonize, incite. A great test is coming for America. This is a test that is pass/fail. It's very simple. We are nearly 250 years old as a nation. Generations of Americans have marched into battle to defend our freedom. They crossed bridges, like the Edmund Pettus, for justice. Americans were beaten, killed, lynched, shot so they could have the right to vote, have a say, and a stake in the future, their children's future, their country's future, their community's future. There is no conceivable way to sustain the United States of America, outside of a system where the people are able to pick their leaders. And this requires something from the leaders -- a willingness to concede to the sovereignty and the will of the people. Losing an election is hard. Many people take it very, very personally. For some, it breaks them. Politics attracts all sorts of people: narcissists, the vain, the needy, the searching, the yearning. It also attracts genuine servants -- people who want to make the country stronger, make it better and defend the country. It's so hard sometimes to see the difference, and to tell the difference between the two. But they're there. The test at hand means you cannot be for the man who tried to take away the right of the American people to choose. The test ahead means that you have to understand America is built on the concept that if you lose, you acknowledge the will of the people. You congratulate your opponent. You support him or her when you can, if there are areas of mutual agreement for the betterment of something bigger, bigger than you, bigger than your family, bigger than your community, bigger than your state. That's the American nation. We will never live in an era where there is an absence of threat. The crisis comes when there is an absence of character, of national character, to meet the threat.
The fascist threat was crushed because of the will and the power of the American people. The same with global communism. But absent that will, what would have happened? And so the question must be asked, what will happen in the absence of will to stop extremism from taking root in an election in the United States? What will happen is Trump's minority will grow with its apathetic partners into a very small majority, and be in a position to take power. And if they do, they will begin immediately tearing apart the institutions and structures of the government to make sure that, never again, would there be a check, or a balance or any limitations whatsoever to the use of Donald Trump's authority and power, including deciding if he's ready to retire, or wants to keep on going for a third or fourth term. These things aren't far fetched at the eight year mark with Donald Trump. We've watched it all play out for a very long time now. Donald Trump said he wouldn't concede the election for the first time in 2015. He went on to do exactly what he said he was going to do. And we now know because of the revelation of a secret memo, that was not uncovered by the January 6 committee, that in fact, the Trump campaign, the conspiracy to take power through an American coup, is highly organized, premeditated, and very deliberate. This is at the heart, the greatest core part of the American tragedy. Over these last eight years, Donald Trump behaved in the White House, precisely, like many of us expected him to. Many of us understood that the presidency reveals character. It doesn't create it. And we saw from Donald Trump an exposition of the lowest character amongst the whole of the American people. Truly, the country brought to the White House and put into power, the worst from amongst us. In there, he sat degrading the country, attacking its systems and its institutions. This cannot be abided any longer. The American people have a choice to make. Will a deranged man take power again? Because if we do, because if we allow it, we're flushing it all down the toilet. And that will be the greatest tragedy in all of American history.