GOP rightly shows Trump that Lincoln’s party stands for justice

Throughout my four years as chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, all of my speeches to activists were built around the same theme: It is that, regardless of our differences, we are united by the core principles of our party.

Those principles, freedom and equality for all, were simple to define. In all those four years, it never occurred to me that we would one day have a Republican president who did not appear to understand those principles.

In 1863, at the dedication of Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, President Lincoln, in his simple eloquence, defined our young country when he spoke of a nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

{mosads}In the 154 years since then, these words have united a nation, raised us up in our darkest days, and provided hope for those downtrodden and targeted by the ugliness of racism around the world. These are the words that have made our great nation a beacon of hope for freedom seeking people everywhere.

Later in his remarks, referring to consecrating the ground on which the Battle of Gettysburg was fought, Lincoln said, “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

From that day forward, the Republican Party has dedicated itself to assuring that those words were, in fact, long remembered and that the freedom and equality fought for on that sacred ground, was forever guaranteed to every American.

In the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, President Trump has forced our party into the untenable position of having to choose between defending a president who claims our party’s banner or defending the core principles of that party, with no middle ground to be found. His convoluted, obfuscating and weak-kneed responses to the bigoted, racist, white supremacist ideology that led to the death of an innocent young woman, forced other Republican leaders to fill the void.

Republican senators, governors, appointees and activists from across the country quickly and powerfully expressed the outrage felt by decent Americans everywhere. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) was among the first to implore the president to show leadership when he tweeted that Trump “must call evil by its name,” adding that these were “white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also called on the president to speak for the American people when he tweeted, “Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists.”

Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and dozens of other elected Republicans expressed their outrage and heartbreak at the hate-inspired violence, while Republican activists took to social media to express clearly that these bigots did not represent their views and were not welcome in their party.

Only President Trump struggled to get his message right. In a moment that should have been an easy home run for any American president — when simply speaking from the heart about the founding of our great nation and quoting the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, or the words of any a dozen other Republican presidents who came before him — was all that was required, Trump struck out.

He could not reassure the American people that he shared their outrage, that he felt their pain, or even that he fully and forcefully rejected a movement so antithetical to the promise of America. Then, after bumbling through two attempts to get it right, the president did the unthinkable last Tuesday, when he essentially rescinded his previous denunciation of the perpetrators and started a brawl with the press over the “many sides” he deemed responsible for the deadly violence.

In full view of the world, an American president drew a moral equivalence between white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and those who protested and rejected their repulsive ideology. In this great failure, Trump has forced the hand of the Republican Party. Will we stand firmly in the footprints of Abraham Lincoln, or in the ever-darkening shadow of those too cowardly to call hate by its name?

While he may well be dedicated to tax reform and infrastructure funding, the president has shown he lacks the courage and character to carry the mantle of Lincoln. He lacks the fortitude to see our nation through the dark and festering danger of bigotry. It falls, therefore, on the shoulders of Republicans in the House and Senate, and in corner offices across the country, to lead our nation forward.

Those Republican senators, representatives and governors who were elected by the American people to lead on issues great and small must continue to be the voice of our nation’s promise. They were elected to lead and now, as the president has failed to do so, they must light the way for all Americans to see our path forward from the destructive ugliness in Charlottesville.

Anything less suggests a lack of understanding of the core principles of conservatism and will signal the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. Of course, for many, that may very well be the goal.

Jennifer Horn was chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party from 2013 to 2017 and is a former member of the Republican National Committee executive committee. She was the first woman nominated by the Republican Party in New Hampshire when she won the party’s nomination for the state’s second congressional district in 2008.

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