https://www.deseret.com/2021/4/7/22353618/evan-mcmullin-miles-taylor-new-third-party-gop-republican-founding-ideals-trump-vision
Swivit Party Spook Evan McMullin Twists In Fear
On a cold Friday morning in February, 120 well-known conservatives gathered via Zoom. The meeting was unadvertised and invite-only, and under Chatham House Rule, attendees agreed to not publicly reveal the identity of others outside of that setting.
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A swath of conservatives helped remove Trump from office two months previous, and organizations like McMullin’s Stand Up Republic and Taylor’s RePAIR (The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform) were instrumental in that movement.
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The Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol struck both McMullin and Taylor as eerily familiar — even reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks. “Jan. 6 was significant because the attack didn’t come from outside — it came from within,” Taylor said. McMullin concurred: “I look at that Jan. 6 insurrection as an incident of similar proportions. It was a violent insurrection led by a sitting president, who sought to overturn a free and fair election, in order to retain power unto himself illegally and illegitimately. And that is a direct threat to our republic as I could possibly imagine.”
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Recent polling from Reuters/Ipsos suggest that half of Republicans believe the Jan. 6 attack was largely nonviolent or sparked by left-wing activists, a false theory promulgated by comments from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, among others. Others in the Republican Party, like Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have been vocal in criticizing Trump for his role in the violence at the Capitol. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who supported Trump’s reelection, told me in February the insurrection was “a very, very bad thing that happened, and one of many examples of what can occur when people feel passionately about their cause but don’t bother to look at, or care about, what the text of the Constitution says.”
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McMullin and Taylor invited some 200 people to the February meeting, and about two-thirds showed up. The discussions swirled around a return to truth and decency, and a recommitment to founding American principles. Attendees, including staunch Trump detractors (like Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent) and disillusioned members of the Trump White House (like John Mitnick and Elizabeth Neumann), all had the opportunity to share their thoughts on what principles needed to be emphasized and salvaged.
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“If, for example, Mark Kelly in Arizona, a unifying Democrat, is facing Kelli Ward, an extremist Republican in Arizona, in his next race, then in that case, choosing between a unifying Democrat and an extremist on the right, we would back Mark Kelly,” he said.
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Several members of Congress, like Sens. Richard Burr and Susan Collins and Rep. Liz Cheney, were censured by their states’ Republican Party for opposing Trump in his impeachment trial this year. As Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently elaborated in a podcast with Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis, “It seems we’ve (Republicans) just defined ourselves in opposition to whatever it is the left is doing. We’ve lost whatever moral high ground we had.”
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>The fear is palpable, enjoying the show.