Republican silence frees Trump to trample truth

Finally. Finally a few Republicans, notably Sens. Bob Corker and John McCain and former President George W. Bush, have summoned the courage to declare publicly that the emperor has no clothes. The willfully blind silence from rank and file Republicans has been deafening.

While President Donald Trump, like a spoiled child, engages in an orgy of tantrum and excess, Republican leaders have been shamefully reticent. Moreover, of those who have spoken out, none has been willing to name Trump as the source of so much national fear, consternation and embarrassment.

Prominent among those afraid to publicly acknowledge the real danger the president poses to our nation and world is the Senate majority leader, Kentucky’s own Mitch McConnell.

Silence in the face of White House incompetence, bullying, bluster and lying is the same as acceptance and assent.

By their silence, McConnell, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Andy Barr, Gov. Matt Bevin and other elected Republicans assent to the most corrosive impulses of Trump and thus free him to run roughshod over truth, morality and leadership.

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 6:39 PM with the headline "Republican silence frees Trump to trample truth."