John Kasich rant: Stop Trump

      “The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine."

Donald Trump, verbatim, on Sunday

"If we don't deal with this, we become like a banana republic. And where are the Republicans?"

       John Kasich, Republican, former governor of Ohio

John Kasich has the sound of outrage down pat. He is on the outside at CNN, looking in, telling GOP officeholders what to do.

Step up, he tells Republicans. 

Actually, he should step up.

Click: two minute uninterrupted rant by Kasich

Donald Trump is flagrantly disobeying the Whistleblower statute which unambiguously directs the Inspector General to turn over to Congress what the whistleblower said.

Trump is saying no.

If what is reported and rumored is true, and as Trump publicly admitted, then Donald Trump held up a military appropriation to Ukraine as an inducement to interfere with the US election by starting an investigation of Joe Biden. 

The testimony of the whistleblower would clarify if this is true. The transcript of the phone call would likely provide direct evidence. It is available, right there. Donald Trump says they cannot have the evidence.

Trump says he didn't use taxpayer money to demand interference in the election--trust him--but it would have been all right if he had:

"I don’t even want to mention it, but certainly I’d have the right to”

One good way to make clear that Trump's behavior is outside the bounds of legal, ethical, presidential behavior is for a major Republican candidate to emerge, now. 

     ***That would make it a matter of principle and law, not a matter of partisanship
     ***That might re-claim the Republican Party as heir to Reagan, not Trump.
     ***That might embolden Republican officeholders looking for leadership by someone with a big microphone and audience.
     ***That might set the stage for that candidate to be elected president, most likely in 2024.

So far three not-real candidates have stepped up to challenge Trump. Mark Sandford, Joe Walsh, and William Weld. None are plausible. 

John Kasich is. Kasich is a Republican in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush, who won election. He represents kinder, gentler conservatism of a Party that cares about fiscal responsibility, about the morality of presidents, about the rule of law. It was the party that won a majority of the votes in the early primary states in 2016, when Trump was winning twenty or thirty percent and the other dozen or more Republicans were dividing up the vast majority.

Kasich website.  Us? He is flirting with running.

Kasich represents the pre-Trump Republican Party, the one Trump defeated.  Officeholders are hiding out. Voters are leaderless.

An opportunity has emerged. Trump has exhausted Americans. There is room for a candidate with a message of unity. Support for Biden, of all people, is evidence of this. He is a weak, flawed candidate, but he represents bipartisanship and government that works to address problems. His support shows that that message has traction--but just not this year for either party. Trump has set a fire and Democrats are fixed on dousing it, not side-stepping it. Democrats are trending toward pitting a fighter against a fighter, Sanders or Warren left populism against Trump right populism. 

Whoever is elected in will likely disappoint in the face of gridlock--the inevitable result of how we will have gotten to an election result. Neither Sanders nor Warren have any real chance of getting Medicare for All, nor free college, nor expungement of college debt, nor free day care, nor a wealth tax of 2%. Trump cannot ban abortion, nor end immigration from Latin America, nor book a tremendous victory in a trade war. We have gridlock.

Besides, it is not the nature of Trump, Sanders, or Warren to communicate peace. Their supporters would define bi-partisanship as failure, as selling out. 

That leaves a lane open, for 2024 in the face of the upcoming disappointment. Kasich could be the Republican who kept his head, who stood up against nihilistic populism and the mood of tear everything down. 

He will lose in 2020 so he could win in 2024--if he sets the stage now.