Elise Stefanik: A Portrait of Selling One's Soul

In today's Republican Party integrity, honor, honesty, and support for the U.S. Constitution, including the separation of church and state, are a thing of the past with few exceptions. Liz Chaney - who not many years ago I viewed as seeking to be a female version of her father who often called "Emperor Palpatine" - along with Adama Kinzinger has become one of the few Republicans championing what were once bedrock Republican and moral values.  The rest of the Party cares nothing for morality or anything else other than personal advancement within a Party that demands a cult like alliegance to Donald Trump - a man who could be a evil character out of a political thriller novel - who embodies the seven deadly sins. Shockingly, many of these Republican disciples of Trump who now seek the overhtrow of constitutional government are well educated and know better, yet the thirst for power has made them willing to discard everrything decent and moral in the pursuit of personal gain. If not stopped, America faces a terrifying future where democacy is dead and a "Christian" version of Sharia law could be imposed on all Americans (some Republicans are now calling for a ban of all birth control).  A column in the Washington Post looks at Elise Stefanik who is a case study in the jettison of morality and honesty in the unbridled quest for power.  Here are column excerpts:

When John Bridgeland left a senior position in George W. Bush’s White House and joined Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in the fall of 2004, an eager undergraduate got assigned to him as a student fellow and facilitator of his seminar. . . . He remembered her as “extremely bright” and “through-and-through public-service-oriented.” She was so impressive in the seminar that he chose her to do a project with him selling Harvard students on the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and other service opportunities. “I thought the world of her,” Bridgeland said.

The young woman’s name was Elise Stefanik.

Bridgeland secured her a job in the White House when she graduated in 2006, personally appealing to Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and other former colleagues to hire her. Bridgeland later encouraged her to run for Congress, which she did, successfully, in 2014 — and the New York Republican quickly established herself as a leading moderate. “I was so incredibly happy and proud,” Bridgeland said. . . . She had the highest character.” . . . And then, he said, “this switch went off.”

Today, the world sees a much different Stefanik. This past week, after the racist massacre in Buffalo, attention turned to her articulation of “great replacement” theory, the white-supremacist conspiracy beliefs said to have propelled the alleged killer. Before that, she had been a prominent election denier, voting to overturn the 2020 results after the Jan. 6 insurrection, and then using the issue to oust and replace House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.) because she refused to embrace President Donald Trump’s election lies.

Now, Stefanik has thrown her support, as the No. 3 House GOP leader, behind a proposal to “expunge” Trump’s impeachment for his role in the insurrection. . . . The resolution has no purpose (there’s no constitutional way to expunge impeachment) other than to sow further distrust of democracy.

It’s a story told a thousand times: Ambitious Republican official abandons principle to advance in Trump’s GOP. But perhaps nobody’s fall from promise, and integrity, has been as spectacular as the 37-year-old Stefanik’s. “I was just so shocked she would go down such a dark path,” said her former champion, Bridgeland. “No power, no position is worth the complete loss of your integrity. It was just completely alarming to me to watch this transformation. I got a lot of notes saying, ‘What happened to her?’ ”

The answer is simple: “Quest for power,” Bridgeland said. “But power without principle is a pretty dark place to go. She wanted to climb the Republican ranks and she has, but … she’s climbed the ladder on the back of lies about the election that are undermining trust in elections, putting people’s lives at risk.”

When Bridgeland saw his former protegee’s lies about the election, “I was shattered. I was really heartbroken,” he told me. Alumni of Harvard’s IOP petitioned to remove Stefanik from its advisory committee, and Bridgeland signed it. “I had to,” he said, “because Constitution first.” Stefanik called her removal a “badge of honor” and a decision on the school’s part “to cower and cave to the woke left.”

“People become totally ruined by their failure to stand up for the good and the true, but I do think she has the spark still and could awaken to it,” Bridgeland said. “It’s not too late.”

For our country’s sake, I wish I could believe that.

Sadly, a tawdry prostitute seemingly has more integrity than Stefanik.