Next Tuesday in Las Vegas the Republican presidential candidates gather for another debate. America is at a historic crossroad.
If the GOP fails to denounce Donald Trump to his face in front of millions of Americans next week, the party will lose any claim it is capable of leading our nation. The gaggle of Republican White House hopefuls will relinquish any right to victory in the presidential election next November. They will be shunned by the overwhelming majority of voters and deservedly so.
Cowardice in the face of demagoguery is an affront to this nation’s traditions. The republic’s founding fathers and mothers did not risk their lives in a War of Independence only to bequeath the nation to bigoted, groveling, spineless fools.
Will the Republican Party and the current crop of presidential aspirants demonstrate they are worthy recipients of the legacy handed to them by the signatories of the Declaration of Independence?
Or will they prove to the world what many suspect? That the United States has squandered its inheritance. She has abandoned the welcome carved on the Statue of Liberty. Our nation has extinguished the beacon of enlightenment and hope.
Americans historically have faced and surmounted domestic and international challenges. The Civil War threatened to cleave the nation. The Great Depression tested the marrow and sinew of millions. Leaders of all races resolved to assure the Civil Rights of every resident. The red-baiting of former Senator Joseph McCarthy collapsed when Joseph Welch repudiated McCarthy’s communist witch hunt in a time dangerously similar to today.
Two days ago we observed the 74th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. “A date which will live in infamy,” as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt courageously asserted. His resolve inspired the Greatest Generation.
We are the posterity of that resolve. But how will historians record December 15, 2015? Will we witness a day of courage that honors the sacrifice of our forbears? Or will the evening cast a shadow of cowardice that betrays our heritage?
The world is watching to see which path America will choose.
Steve Coon 