An appeal to Florida Republican and independent voters

Perhaps you are veering toward Trump-Pence in the belief that the ticket is better for your business, your 401(K), your tax rates, jobs, and meeting payroll. Maybe you oppose abortion, and find “political correctness” and the excesses of protestors in the streets a danger to responsible free speech.

Let’s assume you are right.

My take: In 2020 the Party of Lincoln needs a time out. We need a center-right party, not one that welcomes racists, QAnon, or Very Fine People carrying AR-15s into statehouses and plotting to kidnap and even kill governors. And not one that suppresses votes.

More important, no party should operate fearing the whim of one person -- virtuous or wicked, sane or mad -- any more than our nation can be subject to the caprices of a king, which was the idea of America in 1776.

Most of all, how can any democracy survive if its leader pits citizens against each other, refuses to accept peaceful transfer of power, knows little or nothing of the Constitution, calls on “militias” to “stand by”, and guts, corrupts, and sows distrust into institutions as trusted and varied as inspectors general, the Census Bureau, the Postal Service, the armed services, and the state department?

How can America function when its leader has more than $400 million coming due? And payable to whom exactly and where?

This administration, borne of grievance, has morphed through fear into rage. The grown-ups left the room long ago. Its reelection points to four years of vengeance that could permanently damage our already wobbly democratic republic. Today’s Republican Party is about two things: getting in line behind Trump and “owning the libs.” There is no 2020 platform. Voting Republican is not about coming “home”, for that home is no longer there. Don’t our children and grandchildren deserve better?

This hurts people -- not just the 225,000 and counting COVID dead and their families. We could speak of decimated federal agencies, caged children in private prisons, torn families, abandoned Kurds, shunned allies, our nation’s gutted international credibility, the refusal to confront Putin on paying bounties to slaughter U.S. and allied troops called “suckers” and “losers”, a demonized media, opponents smeared as enemies, health care ripped from millions, suppressed votes, fetishized violence, not-so-little green men in unmarked uniforms, and so much more. Trump has few unmonetized friends, an ever-diminishing team dominated by toadies, cranks, and gaslit family, and no coherent policy.

Biden may seem an unlikely savior and does not pretend to be any better than the rest of us. He is not autocratic, mad, or innately corrupt. As a 36-year senator from a tax-shelter state, he is no socialist. He has a large, willing team, a deep bench of professionals, supporters, and friends, and knows how to grieve and laugh.

More than 300 lobbyists populate federal agencies, about four times as many as in Obama’s time. An energy lobbyist runs the Environmental Protection Agency, a corporate lobbyist runs the Department of Labor, an oil lobbyist runs the Department of the Interior, and an ideologue runs the Department of Education. In 2016, the Russians picked the locks of our election system. Now they can just walk in. They don’t have to now. Trump has succeeded at embedding distrust and chaos into our system, our minds, our very lives. No president has taken his approach to elections before voting even starts to question results in advance, spread fear, spread conspiracy theories, threaten opponents, attack the media, and intimidate and suppress voters.

In this chaos, China wins. Russia laughs.

Imagine if Ron DeSantis or Marco Rubio didn’t worry about pleasing Trump. Would they do better jobs and show stronger spines? Or suppose Democrats take the Senate. How would a majority of 51, with moderate-to-conservative red-state Democrats holding the swing, usher in socialism? As for the judiciary, one in five federal judges with lifetime tenure is a Trump appointee, many in their thirties and forties. Six of nine Supreme Court justices are members of the Federalist Society. That mission is accomplished.

No, this election is not about policy. It is about integrity, baseline competence, and the very idea of America. This is now remedial first aid: stop the bleeding, protect the wound, prevent or treat shock. This is DEFCON 1. We can talk about marginal tax rates later.

We the people, and we alone – and together -- can fix this.