Here's what Tea Party Republican Joe Walsh said about Trump

On August 15th, former one-term Tea Party Republican congressman from Illinois Joe Walsh had this to say about President Donald Trump in a New York Times op-ed titled "Challenge Trump From the Right."  Walsh was elected to Congress in 2011.   He served one term, then became a conservative talk-radio host.

Since writing this op-ed, calling for a primary challenger to Trump from the right,  he has decided to become that person himself.  So let's look back at what he said in the op-ed.                                      :

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Walsh says that he entered Congress in 2011 "as an insurgent Tea Party Republican.  My goals were conservative and clear:  restrain executive power and reduce the debt.  Barack Obama was president then, and it was easy for us to rail against runaway spending and executive overreach.

"Eight years later, Mr. Trump has increased the deficit more than $100 year over year -- it's now nearing $1 trillion -- and we hear not a word of protest from my former Republican colleagues.  He abuses the Constitution for his narcissistic trade war.  . . .  Mr. Trump's tariffs are a tax increase on middle-class Americans and are devastating to our farmers.   That's not a smart electoral strategy.

"It's one of the many reasons Mr. Trump is ripe for a primary challenge. . . . 

"Fiscal matters are only part of it.  At the most basic level, Mr. Trump is unfit for office.  His lies are so numerous . . . . 

"I didn't vote vote for Mr. Trump in 2016 because I liked him.  I voted for him because because he wasn't Hillary Clinton.   Once he was elected, I gave him a fair hearing and tried to give him the benefit of of the doubt.   But I soon realized that I couldn't support him because of the danger he poses to the country, especially the division he sows at every chanced, culminating a few weeks ago in his ugly racist attack on four minority congresswomen.

"The fact is, Mr. Trump is a racist arsonist who encourages bigotry and xenophobia to rouse his base his base and advance his electoral prospects.  In this, he inspires imitators.

"Republicans should view Mr. Trump as the liability he is. . . . In front of the world, he sides with Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence community.   That's dangerous.  He encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 election.  That's reckless.  For three years he has been at war with our federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as he embraces tyrants abroad and embarrasses our allies.  That's un-American. . . .

"He's reckless on fiscal issues;  he's incompetent on the border;  he's clueless on trade   he misunderstands executive power;  and he subverts the rule of law. . . .

"[Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld] is challenging Mr. Trump from the center.  But the president is more vulnerable to a challenge from the right. . . .  We need someone who could stand up, look the president in the eye and say:  'Enough, sir.  We've had enough of your indecency.  We've had enough of your lies, your bullying, your cruelty, enough of your insults, your daily drama, your incitement, enough of the danger you place this country in every single day.  We don't want any of this anymore;  and the country certainly can't stand four more years of it.'"

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Joe Walsh is not someone I would want to vote for.   But he has Donald Trump pegged to perfection.    And he's unafraid to put it in print -- and, if he does run a primary campaign, he will presumably have a platform from which to broadcast it far and wide -- as a conservative Republican.

I think we're seeing the building of a movement among Republicans -- some like Justin Amash and Michael Steele, who are speaking clearly but with restraint;  and others, more likely to rant and rave, like Anthony Scaramucci and Joe Walsh.

But it's happening.

Ralph