You may recall that yesterday, I called for Donald Trump to withdraw from the race for president. I know that his appearance on the ballot–either as a Republican or an independent–would all but assure a Democratic victory in 2016. However, I believe that if people don’t stand up and demand that he get out, it would send the message that you can stay in the race even when you demonstrate beyond any doubt that you are morally unfit for office. Well, a Republican congressman from Florida came to roughly the same conclusion on Tuesday. He became the first Republican elected official–or at the very least, the highest-profile one to date–to call for Trump to drop out.
David Jolly represents Florida’s 13th congressional district, centered around St. Petersburg. He was very unnerved by Trump’s call for a temporary halt to Muslim immigration. Indeed, he was unnerved enough that he felt compelled to publicly call for Trump’s withdrawal from the race. Watch here.
Jolly said that this country faces “a national security test,” and has “begged” the White House to do more about terrorism. However, he believes we also face “a test of religious freedom,” and finds it “heartbreaking” that Trump would suggest that anyone seeking to come to this country would effectively face “a religious test.” Such an idea, he said, is “an affront to the very principles on which our nation was founded.”
Jolly, a professed born-again Christian, says that “the beautiful thing about this country” is that we can declare our faith, regardless of persuasion, “without fear of any reprisal.” However, if it were up to Trump, Jolly thinks “we may not have the liberty to do that anymore.” He believes that while we have to insist that immigrants pass a security test, a religious test is never acceptable. For that reason, he believes that the GOP needs “one less candidate” in the race for president.
Later that day, Jolly dropped by Fox Business for a chat with Charles Payne. Watch here.
By then, Trump supporters had lit up the Internet with denunciations of Jolly’s speech. But Jolly isn’t backing down one inch, saying that there are times when “leaders have to lead.” He said that Trump was “injecting religious bigotry” into a conversation about national security. He believes we need tougher vetting of immigrants, but sees it as a security issue, not a religious one. He accused Trump of “playing on our fears” by calling for the junking of everything that our soldiers have fought for over the years.
Payne said that many of Jolly’s critics would likely tell him that there is a common thread in many of the threats we face–radical Islam. But Jolly knocked that down fairly quickly, saying that by all means we should root out radical Islam. However, he said, we don’t face a threat from people “who choose one religion or another.” When Payne asked him if sharia and the Qu’ran should be “in the same space” as Christianity, Jolly replied that “the peaceful exercise of religion” is one of the foundations on which this country is founded–one that Trump wants to erode with a religious test.
Payne asked Jolly how he would respond to people who are afraid of the perceived threat of Islam. Jolly replied that we should be talking about securing the border and vetting our immigrants more closely. Trump, on the other hand, has exposed himself as “a small man” who has nothing to offer other than fearmongering–and for that reason should withdraw from the race.
Most elected Republicans shied away from attacking Trump too forcefully before this past week, for fear of being the target of a Trump attack. For that reason, Jolly deserves to be applauded for taking a stand for basic standards of decency and civility. He is absolutely right that Trump’s proposal for a religious litmus test is fundamentally un-American.
Jolly’s stance is even more courageous considering that he may very well have ended his political career by calling for Trump to withdraw. He jumped into the race to succeed Marco Rubio in the Senate after facing the near-certainty that his swingy congressional district would become all but unwinnable in a court-ordered redistricting. Trump has been boat-racing the field in the Florida Republican primary. The last public poll in the race, by Florida Atlantic University in November, showed Trump with a staggering 36 percent of the vote; Rubio was a distant second, with 18 percent.
Still, some things are worth sacrificing your career over–including taking a stand against a candidate who is manifestly unfit for the presidency.
