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Dave Caudill| Opinion contributor

Phil Heimlich, I salute you.

Your famous father devised a maneuver to save people from choking on food while trying to swallow. You sir, are trying to save the Republican Party from choking as it maneuvers to swallow Donald Trump.

Heimlich is part of a far-too-rare cohort of the GOP. I hesitate to use the word "party"to describe what has become for so many in it a snarling, delusional cult with Trump ensconced as its chief snarler and truth denier.

Why cant more Republicans show the kind of integrity and willingness to compromise that Heimlich has consistently, going back to when Trump emerged on his fumbling quest to transform this country into an oligarchy led by one more rich would-be autocrat.

Lets try to understand what puts so many Republican officeholders in thrall to Trump. They, like a lot of politicians, put holding office and winning elections above almost all else. But as the news organization Axios Jonathan Swan put it to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell in a recent interview: "Where is your moral red line?"

The unfailing truth is that Trump lost the 2020 election by some 7 million votes. Why back such a poor loser who cant even admit that he lost?

Many Republicans like to cite "problems" with vote counting in the 2020 elections. But this is clearly another political ploy made despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Elected officials, courts and law enforcement on both sides of the political spectrum examined the possibility of fraud in the election and found that if it happened at all, it could not have changed the outcome.

Warren Davidson, Heimlichs opponent in Ohios 8th District GOP primary, is among the Trump minions unwilling to admit that President Biden won the election. He almost surely knows that Biden won legitimately but calculates that its not politically expedient to say so. Hes the very definition of a politician without backbone.

But, of course, Davidson is not alone. Such a position has become the litmus test for a Trump endorsement, and Davidson has that. Presumably, it helps him to sleep at night.

Fortunately, Heimlich is not alone either. Republicans for the Rule of Law (ruleoflawrepublicans.com) is among the organizations working to restore the partys integrity.

Sarah Longwell, the groups executive director and publisher of The Bulwark (thebulwark.com), a news network that provides political reporting and analysis "free from the constraints of partisan loyalties,"attempted to explain the power of the "Big Lie"that Trump won the 2020 election. Longwell speaks often to focus groups and has concluded that people who believe the Big Lie dont believe its a lie. They are not bad people, shes concluded, they simply have no idea that they are being lied to.

A huge part of the reason they have no idea, Longwell writes, is that the news sources they pay attention to (heres looking at you, Fox) and candidates and public officials they voted for are going along with it. The officials do it to prop up their approval ratings, and Fox does it mostly to bolster its viewership. Consequently, the lie perpetuates itself.

Heimlich, and a lot of other Republicans, even those who wont say so, see through this Wizard-of-Oz-like curtain.

In a recent Enquirer news story, Hamilton County GOP Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou said of Heimlichs run against Davidson: "If he thinks hes rescuing us from Donald Trump, hes mistaken. Thats not how it works."

Mr. Triantafilou, how does it work? How does the Republican Party find more candidates who have crawled out from under the anti-democratic, mendacious, bloated boulder that is Donald Trump?

Dave Caudill of Mount Lookout is a freelance writer and editor and a former Enquirer staffer.

Read more:
Opinion: Heimlich working to restore Republican Party's integrity - The Cincinnati Enquirer