We haven’t seen this in awhile. In fact, unless someone has unlocked the key to immortality, no one has seen this. The Republican party is dead. So, this is an important time in our country just like the last time this happened. Abraham Lincoln created a new party that was desperately needed at that point in American history. The Whigs went the way of the doodoo bird.

The two-party system is unique in the world. Most democracies around the world operate under a kind of coalition government. So, parties are pure and they have to reach across the aisle to multiple groups to get things done. In that world, it is easy to operate as a party. Your views can be more narrow and your orthodoxy can be consistent.

The Democratic and Republican parties have been coalition parties amidst themselves. They appeal to groups and those groups shift. As groups shift then believes and planks shift. So, to say the GOP is dead is not an ideological critique. Someone somewhere will appeal to those groups. There will be an uncomfortable period where allegiances will shift, but it is ultimately something that has to happen.

Why has the GOP died? Simply put, they have abandoned democracy. Their standard bearer has gone full on Nazi. Full stop. When you start including the term “vermin” in your campaign stump speech you are flat out giving a nod to Hitler. Whatever you feel about that kind of acknowledgment, the brand is now about full on election denialism. The GOP in Ohio wants to deny their recent results. Imagine a sports team that never acknowledged defeat and sued the league every time they lost. At a certain point, the league would have to expel them so that normalcy could return.

In that vain, people like Joe Mancin are touring the country to see if they can forge a new way forward. For the time being, we will assume he is on the up and up. There are a number of things that make me question that, but we will leave that aside for now. When there is a Nazi on the ballot you do anything you can to defeat the Nazi. That is of course unless you are a Nazi yourself.

So, there will be time for a new center-right party to form. It absolutely needs to happen and it will happen. One party government is not real democracy. I’m a Democrat and have always been a Democrat but more than anything else I am an American. I am a progressive. I will ultimately be wherever those folks end up going. Many of my friends and family are conservative. They aren’t crazy. They aren’t Nazis. They aren’t white supremacists. They are just conservative.

So, I salute any group that wants to forge a new way forward. They need to wait until we defeat the Nazi. A large part of the issue is that the GOP is dead. They are incapable of policing themselves. That is one of the signs you know they are dead. Trump will likely go to prison and it won’t matter. They have had numerous opportunities to police themselves. They haven’t.

So, the American people will have to do that for them. They will need to overwhelmingly vote Democratic until that menace goes away. They will need to serve on juries and vote guilty. Judges will need to have the courage to send him to prison. Everyone say goodbye to the GOP. They had a good run. It’s time for a new conservative party to take its place. However, we need to save our democracy first.