Last Call for Mike Lawler to Board the Train of Reason

If Mike Lawler really expects people to believe he's the Establishment Republican he claims to be, he has a lot of work to do.

First, he needs to unequivocally denounce Trump for the narcissistic, traitorous criminal that he is. It's no secret that Lawler was a big Trump fan during the 2016 election, and was a steadfast loyalist and defender right up to January 6th, 2021. Sure, Lawler conceded that Trump lost the 2020 election, and that January 6th was a dark day for America, but he has never said plainly and clearly that the responsibility for what happened that day began and ends with Trump and his closest allies. Trump can never be allowed near the levers of power again, and Lawler needs to say it. All Mike has done to date is to carefully and cautiously distance himself from Trump, and that's not enough.

But let's pretend for a minute that Lawler has learned his lesson, and would never support Trump for any elected office again. After all, he was barely 30 in 2016, and maybe he was still young and naive. But now he's older, more mature, married, a father and of course, a congressman for New York. He must have learned something from his past mistakes. Yet, it seems as if he hasn't, because he was publicly outraged that House Democrats didn't vote to keep Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

Liz Cheney, the kind of Establishment Republican Lawler claims to be, summed up McCarthy's ouster during a recent speech at the University of Minnesota:

"Kevin McCarthy at every moment over the course of the last two years has done more to enable and collaborate with and apologize for Donald Trump. Kevin McCarthy stood on the House Floor an hour after the capitol had been cleared and said that the objections should continue. He released security tapes to Tucker Carlson. He refused to abide by the subpoena that had been issued by the Select Committee. The Democrats made what is a principled and honorable decision."

When you take a moment to carefully consider those words, you have to ask why Lawler voted for McCarthy at all, no less 15 times. Lawler had moved on from Trump by then, no? Why would he support one of Trumps biggest enablers?

This leads to the second thing Lawler needs to do if he wants to be seen as the Establishment Republican he claims to be: pick a reasonable, normal person to be the next Speaker of the House. Again, Liz Cheney summed it up last Wednesday:

"Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6th than any other member of the House of Representatives. Jim Jordan was involved- was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election."

Cheney later went on to say, "if the Republicans decide that Jim Jordan should be the Speaker of the House, there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution."

If Lawler votes for Jordan as Speaker, he will have proven that he cannot be trusted as a moderate voice of reason in his party. So who else might he vote for? Steve Scalise, who also voted to overturn the 2020 election? Again this will make it clear that Lawler stands with the insurrectionists, and cannot be counted on to defend the Constitution.

Getting back to the outrage that Democrats didn't vote to save McCarthy, it should be clear that if any members of the House should seriously consider reaching across the aisle, it's the group of moderate Republicans of which Lawler is a part. They will never vote for Jeffries, but they could be working with Democrats to agree on someone normal and responsible, who actually wants to get things done. Someone who would insure that aid continues to Ukraine and who would back Israel as it battles Hamas. Someone who would agree that the impeachment inquiry of Biden is divisive and pointless. Does such a member even exist, or has the Overton Window shifted so far right for Republicans, that even establishment moderates like Lawler can no longer be trusted to do the right thing?

Only time will tell, but it feels like this is an opportunity for Mike Lawler to prove he is responsible by working with Democrats to pick the next Speaker. It's an opportunity for him to spend less time sniping at AOC and blaming Biden for all of our woes, and spend more time proposing actual solutions to the problems we face as Americans.