Republicans still too terrified to employ the ‘Goldwater Rule’

After 150 days, Republicans still too terrified to employ the ‘Goldwater Rule’ to save world economy from Trump’s Iran madness

By Walt Zlotow 

Republican Congresspersons and Cabinet members prefer to bow down to a president bent on global economic destruction than removing him from office.

Trump has put the world economy at risk of collapse for 150 days now in his criminal Iran war he lost on Day 1. When Iran didn’t fold upon the assassination of their leader the Ayatollah Khomeini that day, Trump had no chance of prevailing.

After 39 days of futile bombing he threw in the towel. His ceasefire on April 7 signaled defeat. Then his June 17 signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) certified his defeat.

Trump knew Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz proved his defeat to the entire world. So he simply ignored the MOU by trying to reopen the Strait to achieve victory by stealth, using a blockade and a southern route away from Iranian control. Didn’t work. So Trump has reverted to bombing which, like at the start, will never work.

Trump will keep up his charade that he can win for his remaining 907 days unless stopped. The Cabinet cannot invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office because he is neither physically nor mentally impaired enough to do so.

But the Cabinet and Republican Congress can employ the Goldwater Rule to force him out. What, pray tell, is the Goldwater Rule?

On August 7, 1974, erasable but principled conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater led a delegation of Senate and House Republican leaders to visit President Nixon, at the time embroiled in the Watergate scandal. They told him he’d lost control of the Republican Party in Congress and must resign the presidency forthwith. The next day Nixon resigned, something he publicly said was against every fiber of his being.

Goldwater’s successful gambit removing Nixon from office had little importance beyond the simple political need of Republicans to end the Watergate scandal and continue in power under squeaky clean Gerald Ford.

The stakes 52 years later are monumentally more critical. A clearly degraded President Trump unilaterally launched a criminal war of aggression on Iran. Within a day the war was lost for two reasons. First, instead of heeding Trump’s edict for Iranians to depose their government on behalf of the US and Israel, the Iranian people rallied to their government’s existential defense. Second, knowing the US and Israel would attack, Iran prepared a missile defense that largely destroyed US military assets in the region and devastated Israel itself.

Even worse for Trump and the world, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a fifth of the world’s oil supply. The unfolding economic decline worldwide will be enormous and unstoppable unless Trump ends his failed, criminal war and settles on Iran’s sensible terms.

Since Trump will never admit defeat to save thousands of lives and a worldwide economic meltdown, a select group from his Cabinet and GOP Congress must remove him from office. Since the 25th Amendment is technically unavailable, they must invoke the Goldwater option. Pay him a visit and demand his voluntary resignation.

When Trump as expected refuses, they tell him they will go public with their demand. When as expected he refuses again, they must employ the nuclear option, shut down the Cabinet and shut down Congress till he resigns.

Finding a principled leader to play the Goldwater role will be a daunting challenge. Virtually every Republican in Congress and administration is a terrified toady of Trump and his MAGA mob. Any with a semblance of a spine like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and MTG have been purged.

But we must implore those Republicans in power to consider the looming catastrophe facing the world, including the Homeland if they do not crawl out of the cesspool of Trumpism they’ve descended into. They are no longer just facing a political crisis in November. They are enabling an existential economic crisis embroiling the entire world.

The Cabinet and GOP Congress must not waste a single one of Trump’s 907 remaining days to invoke the Goldwater option to prevent further war crimes and worldwide economic calamity.

Maybe Trump will resist bowing to a GOP imposed government shutdown, preferring to bring the entire edifice of American democracy crashing down like Sampson bringing down the temple of Dagon in Gaza. Then again, possibly even extreme narcissist Trump might bow to the inevitable, resign and leave Washington next day with a final MAGA salute ala Nixon 52 years earlier.

If he does, and if Goldwater could drop down from Conservative Heaven (or pop up from Conservative Hell) to observe the proceedings, he’d smile and say ‘Nice work, boys… glad I could show you the way.’

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL