1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Remember J. Michael Luttig? The eminence gris and paragon of the former law and order party? He’s since become a voice crying in the wilderness for a party that no longer exists. But he keeps trying. Because he, like a lot of America, cannot accept the reality that the GOP he believed in is gone. He’s currently back in the headlines with a cautionary tale regarding the upcoming mid-term elections. “It was a time not long ago when virtually every member of Congress could be expected to commit to the peaceful transfer of congressional power in advance of an election,” Luttig wrote. But now, “[i]n a damning indictment of the president and today’s congressional Republicans, it would be hard to find even one congressional Republican with the integrity, sense of duty to country, honor, and courage to put America above the Republican Party, let alone above Donald Trump.” He urged Republicans “to decide that they are not going to betray their oaths and their country one last time for Donald Trump,” and to make it clear to Trump and Mike Johnson that they will not participate in any unconstitutional plan to deny Democrats seats in the new Congress. He warned them that should Republicans go along with such machinations and SCOTUS overrules them, the Republican Party “would finally meet the fate to which it has been destined since January 6, 2021, and cement its place in history as the most corrupt political party ever to emerge in the United States of America for its second attempt in six years to defy the will of the American people on Election Day.” “The writing is already on the wall, Republicans,” the conservative jurist wrote. “The Republican Party in particular must finally loose the chains of its political and moral enslavement to Donald Trump and separate itself from the MAGA political party cult.” Any thinking person left in the Republican Party knows his every word to be true. For any other president in American history, Republican or Democrat, any one of these moments from just the past five days – a bribe-for-votes scheme, a pledge to cheat, a “God sent me to save you” video, a snooze at a 9/11 ceremony – would have been a gobsmackingly embarrassing moment for the president’s party, and a possible presidency ender. But not now. The GOP has been absorbed by Donald Trump. And as if to illustrate Luttig’s warning, Speaker Johnson told attendees at Trump’s convention in Dallas on Thursday: “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in the Congress. We’re not gonna do it.” And there you have it. The GOP strategy for a November win.