Kinzinger got it right in speech to DNC

I grew up in a Catholic household that generally supported Democratic candidates. My parents idolized John F. Kennedy. We even had a cheap tapestry of him being sworn in as president hanging on the wall in our living room. However, my folks would consider voting for the Republican alternative if she or he were the better candidate.

One clear case in point was Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker, who always received my family’s support. My dad, who landed on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge — winning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the process — made it clear that doing what’s best for the country was more important than blind loyalty to any political party or politician.

I provide that background so you understand why I was so impressed with the speech former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger delivered at the Democratic National Convention last week. Kinzinger argued that supporting Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency was not in the best interests of America generally, nor the principled Republican thing to do specifically. Which is remarkable, given Kinzinger initially backed former President Trump. Kinzinger dropped that allegiance after the Jan. 6 insurrection, because of Trump’s role in inciting the attack on our nation’s Capitol and refusal to publicly call for a cessation of the violence despite repeated requests by his White House staffers to do so.

It certainly took intestinal fortitude for Kinzinger to walk into the den of his political opponents and lambaste a former Republican president for failing the nation — and failing to live up to the principles “that gave the Republican Party purpose,” like patriotism, belief in the Constitution, and championing traditional — and primarily Christian — family values, which have always been bedrock tenets of the GOP. But Kinzinger clearly has the facts on his side.

Start with valuing patriotism and belief in the Constitution. Trump incited the violent insurrection of Jan. 6 with the express intention of stopping Congress from exercising its constitutional obligation to count duly cast electoral votes that would confirm Joe Biden won the presidential election. That behavior is treasonous, not patriotic.

It’s also not the only unpatriotic activity Trump perpetrated. Before that fateful day, Trump tried other means of subverting the Constitution to overturn the election he and his advisers knew Trump lost. Like filing around 60 frivolous lawsuits in various states, in an attempt to nullify votes cast for Biden — even though the very same lawyers filing those suits had previously concluded there was no factual or legal basis to support them. Needless to say, all the lawsuits failed.

Trump further scorned the Constitution by pressuring various Republican elected officials in key swing states to illegitimately replace Biden electors with folks pledged to Trump.

Heck, in an interview with FOX News, Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, stated “The American people deserve to know that President Trump demanded I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes. I had no authority to do that.” And because he was true to his nation — and core Republican Party principles — Pence rightly refused Trump’s demands. Taken together, Trump’s various assaults on both American democracy and the U.S. Constitution were unprecedented.

As for traditional, Christian family values, Trump was recently convicted in a court of law of paying hush money to a porn star he had an affair with in 2006, despite being married to his third wife at the time. Trump’s youngest son was born on March 20, 2006. The affair occurred some time in July of that year, meaning Trump had an infant child at home while cheating on his wife. I must have missed the catechism class that condones this behavior.

Bottom line, Kinzinger is right: it isn’t possible for someone to support Trump and still claim to be patriotic, venerate the Constitution or care a whit about traditional family values.

• Ralph Martire is Executive Director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a fiscal policy think tank, and the Arthur Rubloff Professor of Public Policy at Roosevelt University. rmartire@ctbaonline.org