PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The headline could apply to a former partner of mine in the public relations and lobbying firm where I worked for 25 years.  Here is how he would answer:  It is too late for Republicans to stand up for the nation because they have done so in the last four years.

But he might go even farther, making a generalization that ALL Republicans – yes, ALL – are complicit with Donald Trump because they let him get away with his insanity over the last four years, amplified by his failure to accept the decision of voters that he lost the election.

I do not make the kind of generalization my partner does.

I say “some” Republicans have saluted Trump when they should have put the country first, even if that came with Trump’s derision. 

For me, if I was in elective office, getting Trump’s derision would have been a reward worth treasuring.

One of my favorite columnists these days, Michael Gerson, who writes for the Washington Post, dealt with this in a column this morning. 

Here are excerpts:

“There are three stages of Republican political pusillanimity.

“The first is feral cowardice — captured in the wild-eyed, hunted expression of Republicans senators asked to comment on the president’s latest insane or destructive tweet.  This is pure ‘fight or flight,’ minus the fight part.

“The second is calculating cowardice — in which an elected Republican hopes he or she (but mainly he) can refuse comment in the several days after a presidential outrage.  This reflects the undignified but understandable desire to blend into the scenery and avoid the attention of primary predators.

“The third is complicit cowardice.  This is silence in the face of presidential attacks on the constitutional order — a silence that rings out across the prairies and down the hollows as approval and permission.”

Gerson goes on to say that, by claiming the plot against his rightful rule was successfully coordinated across several states, Trump is not merely claiming instances of election fraud.  “He is alleging that the American system of democratic government has failed, which implies a right to revolution.  By demanding specific, unlawful acts to overturn results in a fair election, he is urging authoritarian solutions to his political problems.”

Further, Gerson says, “the coup has already occurred in the president’s mind.”

Can there be any doubt this most narcissistic of all presidents would keep power by overturning the election’s legitimate result?  Can there be any question he would snuff out the democratic voice of the nation if he could?

 More from Gerson.

“This is the interpretive key to Trump:  He is instinctually un-American.  He has no respect for the country’s institutions or values. He is ignorant of the nation’s story, dismissive of its conventions and unmoved by its romance.  He sees politics the way a Machiavellian would in any country — as the pursuit of power, not the stewardship of certain truths.

“Loyalty to Trump now leads well beyond democratic boundaries. Loyalty to the country and its government — being shown primarily by Republican state officials — brings down presidential wrath and abuse by MAGA forces.  With even the morally malleable Attorney General William P. Barr now rejecting ridiculous, dangerous libels against the electoral system, the continuing silence from many elected Republicans is — how to say this politely? — sickening.  Craven.  Dishonorable.”

Gerson says the fact is that U.S. democracy must re-create itself in every generation by reaffirming the ideals that created it.  “Our institutions are not machines that automatically produce the common good.  They depend for their survival and success on democratic values — on the constraint of power, not only by law, but by convention and conscience.

“By expecting such integrity in elected Republicans, we are not asking all that much. The fear of being targeted in a presidential tweet and gaining a primary opponent is real enough.  But it is hardly the risk of a young soldier on D-Day, or a protester at a segregated lunch counter. Honoring the oath of office is the minimal commitment of responsible representation.”

Many Republicans have done this – been committed to responsible representation.  It is past time for all others to do the same. 

And this conclusion from Gerson:  “My plea to elected Republicans:  Remember who you are.  Remember the oath that binds you. Remember the idealism and love of country that brought you to service.   In a world of chance and change, the great things are eternal:  Courage, judgment, honesty, honor, moral integrity and a sense of the sacred.  It is never too late to do the right thing.”