Republican presidential candidates, businessman Donald Trump, right, and Ben Carson appear during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., on Sept. 16. (Mark J. Terrill, The Associated Press)
In the 1990s, when conservative personalities began expanding their influence, they seemed to have one goal: to significantly damage liberalism. However, the only thing they appeared to accomplish was the reduction in Democrats who describe themselves as liberal.
With the House unable to pick a successor to a speaker deemed not conservative enough, a presidential race in which candidates try increasingly harder to flaunt their conservative credentials, and the conservatives pushing to default on our debt and deny climate science — as well as distancing themselves from Hispanics, women and LBGTs, all while being perceived as overly friendly to Wall Street — it seems conservatives have done more damage to the Republican Party than they have ever done to liberalism.
This leaves moderate Republicans three options:
1. Form a moderate party.
2. Fight conservatives in the GOP.
3. Become Democrats.
It is certain, whichever way the Republicans choose, the conservatives are coming for them.
Jonathan Walsh, Littleton
This letter was published in the Oct. 20 edition.
