Former President Donald Trump is right: There's no reason he should sign a GOP loyalty oath in order to participate in the candidates' debates.
Such oaths, which the Republican National Committee employed in the 2016 presidential primary – only to see the last remaining candidates, including Trump, abandon it – aren't just signs of a party's weakness; they are also profoundly silly and even un-American.
Yes, we swear plenty of legally enforceable oaths – in court cases, for example, or declarations on tax forms and other legal documents. But oaths binding candidates to support someone who they've campaigned against, throwing elbows, mud and other rhetorical barbs at them for months to convince voters the guy was a bum?
I'll defer to what Sen. Ted Cruz said of such an oath back in the 2016 presidential primary:
Cruz has dodged the question of whether the pledge still holds by insisting he will be the nominee. Though on Friday, in an apparent reference to Trump, Cruz said, “I don't make a habit out of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family.”
We all know that Cruz eventually did support Trump's candidacy and became one of his biggest defenders in the Senate (which was amusing).
But the oath? Nah. The 2016 primary should have been instructive to party leaders that such commitments are transactional at best and unenforceable in fact. Which brings us to the state parties.
They have been long-time players in loyalty oaths, often attempting to bind voters to the party's eventual nominees. While such pledges are even sillier and utterly unenforceable, that hasn't stopped new ones from cropping up this year. Consider the case of Florida's pledge:
Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida GOP, said in an email that the loyalty pledge is an effort to “ensure maximum unity” headed into the 2024 general election.
“The days of outlier party grifters – such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – using Republican Party resources to secure a title and then weaponize that title against our own team must end,” Ziegler said, referring to two former House members, who are among Trump's most vocal GOP critics.
“Contested primaries are part of the process,” he said, “but we must always remember that the Democrats are the true threat to the America we love and we must be unified to defeat every single one of them.”
The true threat to America is noxious oaths that bind us to men rather than pledges or oaths that bind individuals to uphold the law or tell the truth.
You know, like the only oath that should ever matter for a presidential candidate: the one the Constitution requires:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Every other partisan oath is legally dubious, intellectually suspect and, in the end, not worth the paper it's printed on.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Sign an oath that he is Loyal to Trump!
I have to disagree with you there. Yes the pledge is unenforceable but like the Mr. Ziegler said, it is to ensure maximum unity after a contested primary. It’s a little bit like a sports team. Just because someone else was better during training and earned the spot for your position in the game doesn’t mean that you can just walk away. There is still the other team you have to beat and that’s where all have to pull together. It just shows how self-absorbed these politicians are that they can’t fathom to support someone else.
That’s insane – Maximum unity? This is America not communist China, etc. A party that has good candidates does not need this nor should it require a certain amount of $$ to be collected to buy their way in ! We need a 3rd party to bring sanity to our Congress.
Don’t sign. All of those losers are backstabbers! All of them should be ashamed of themselves, especially Judas Pence.
Right you are! Judas or Quisling! Pence is the real sanctimonious one. He betrayed his boss, most probably because of his yellow belly, not because of any phony righteousness.
NO to RNC debates
More like Tucker style OK
What Trump needs to do is what America needs : Start a 3rd party – legally he can do that and any congressman that joins him would get the votes w/out having to raise the insane amounts of $$$ to qualify to run. Since when in the U.S. does Congress have to buy their way into gov’t. – that should never have been allowed to happen. We desperately need a 3rd party !
I look at a GOP loyalty oath about the same as I looked at Obama, and later on Biden, taking the oath of office after they were elected (or installed) to office…….
I had to take a good, strong bleach bath afterwards.