Republicans against Donald Trump looking for someone who is honorable

Alabama speaks!

Echo opinion essay published in Al.com:

As you might expect, Alabama District 15 Congressman Mo Brooks says Donald Trump should not be elected president again.

It’s a Republican relationship that began imploding  ❗more than a year ago when Brooks – the outgoing congressman from Huntsville, Alabama – said at a Trump rally in August 2021, that voters should take the Trump-objected 2020, presidential election and “put that behind you.”

In fact, the deterioration continued when, Congressman Brooks said, Trump repeatedly asked him to forge a path in Congress for President Joe Biden to be removed from office and that he should be replaced (by Trump (di-dumpty-dee). 

And it culminated in March when Trump retracted his endorsement of the Brooks’ Senate campaign.

So, with the 2022, midterms wrapping up in a "red puddle" disappointment for Republicans and Trump set to declare his candidacy for president Tuesday, what Brooks said Friday should perhaps surprise no one.

“It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” Brooks said in an interview with AL.com. “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”

A reference, of course, to virtual campaign events Biden held from his home in Delaware during the pandemic.

“It’s just the way it is,” Brooks said.

Brooks will leave office Jan. 3 after six terms in Congress, saying he is retiring from politics.

“Nope,” Brooks responded about the occasional whisper or two speculating he might run for mayor of Huntsville in 2024.

“If it does not involve me interacting with my 13 grandchildren, my four kids, my four kids-in-law and my wife, then it is probably false,” Brooks said.

Those plans, he noted, also gives him the freedom to share what’s on his mind – not that he typically withheld those thoughts in the first place. His views on Trump, however, come from a unique perspective. He’s long been considered a close ally of the former president and was the first member of Congress to object to the 2020 presidential election results.

“I did not fight for Donald Trump after the 2020, election,” Brooks said. “I fought for election integrity. Donald Trump just happened to be the beneficiary of it.”

Though Brooks and other Republicans have continued to maintain the results of the 2020, presidential election were questionable, there has been no evidence presented to verify claims that Trump was the rightful winner.

Brooks also twice received Trump’s endorsement in running for Congress as well as his backing less than two weeks after becoming the first candidate to enter the Senate race eventually won by Katie Britt.

So is current criticism of Trump the result of sour grapes over the past?

“Keep in mind 2016, when I said he was dishonest, you cannot trust a single word that he says and I have never recanted that,” Brooks said.

At the same time, Brooks didn’t amplify that criticism of Trump after Brooks’ preferred candidate, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, dropped out of the presidential primary race. Brooks worked as the Alabama campaign manager for (Cruz to Lose!) Cruz.

“No question, I am displeased with Donald Trump,” Brooks said. “But that does not change the truthfulness of what I say. I challenge anybody to make the argument that you can trust the word of Donald Trump.”

Does that make Florida Goverbot Ron DeSantis – expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination – the future of the GOP, aka, Growing Old Party?

“Ron DeSantis or somebody like him,” said Brooks, adding that others he would support are Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “But we need someone who is honorable, someone who has good character, someone that the American people respect. They might disagree with, but they respect. 

Moreover, Ron DeSantis is a fighter for the foundational principles that have combined to make America the greatest nation in world history.”