Michael Steele writes:

Addressing a reunion of Civil War soldiers in 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant predicted that the dividing line in the nation’s next great conflict “will not be Mason’s or Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”

A century and a half later, a once proud Republican Party is convulsing with conspiracy theories and lies about the 2020 election while desperately trying to recast the insurrection of Jan. 6 as nothing more than a tourist event.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming was direct and to the point when she said, “We cannot embrace both the big lie and embrace the Constitution or even democracy itself.” Vowing to make the “GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln,” she told fellow Republicans before they voted to remove her as their conference chair, “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his [Trump’s] destructive lies, I’m not your person.”

If history is any indication, this will not end well.

Returning to the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln could have been describing the work that lies ahead for Cheney and other Republicans fighting for the soul of Republicanism when he said, “We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while.”

The fracture within the Republican Party is not the biggest issue in American politics today. But it is significant in highlighting what is: the battle to preserve, protect and defend American democracy. From voting rights, the Constitution and the rule of law to the once-lauded choice of principle over partisanship, character over corruption and country over party, we have witnessed the Republican Party — my party — quietly approve of or outright participate in the systematic deconstruction of the legitimacy of our republic. [Continue reading…]