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| Josh Brugger |
By Brandon Hall(Email him at WestMIPolitics@Gmail.com)
Ottawa County Commission Vice Chair Josh Brugger has been censured by the Ottawa County Republican Party for his controversial statement comparing President Trump to Hitler.
The condemnation, which was unanimous, comes after a West Michigan Politics report about Brugger's controversial remarks.
Brugger, a Republican from Grand Haven, blasted the decision in a feisty statement on social media, urging his supporters to take over the Ottawa GOP.
I was quite disappointed but not surprised to learn yesterday that the executive committee of the Ottawa Impact controlled Ottawa County Republican Party moved forward with a decision to condemn me for comments I made about president Trumps’ words and actions in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. More significantly, I am disappointed that they would do so by claiming I said something that I simply did not say.
For context, on February 19, after having a phone conversation with President Putin, President Trump called President Zelensky a dictator. Ten days later, President Trump, kicked President Zelensky out of the Oval Office and “sent him packing” back to Ukraine. After months of escalating rhetoric and now these actions, I made a Facebook comment underscoring the view of a veteran history teacher who shared that we were witnessing something profoundly historic. In over a century of European and American history, no American President had ever sided with the leader of an invading nation in Europe. In WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and even in Kosovo, American presidents were always found standing against the aggressor who led their army and/or imposed their ideology on sovereign nations.
In response to my friend’s post and to what we were witnessing on the world stage in the month of February, I describe a cartoon that would sum up this historical paradigm shift.
On one side we’d find the likeness of President Trump standing in support of the leaders of nations who had done the very thing that Vladimir Putin was doing in Ukraine. On the other side would be the Statue of Liberty and all the American Presidents who had stood strong for liberty in Europe.
President Trump supporting and standing alongside all the European aggressors of present and past wars is not to say that that President Trump compares to them. Some in America may feel this way, but that is not what I said.
Donald Trump is no Adolph Hitler. He is our democratically elected president. As president of the United States of America, he is the figurative representative of mankind’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, protected by our Constitution, and symbolized by an outward facing Statue of Liberty.
It was to the shock of many in the United States and around world that President Trump said what he said and did what he did in February.
I can’t change history, and I can’t change what President Trump did on those days. I can only acknowledge what happened and call it for what it was, a profoundly historic paradigm shift in American foreign policy.
The fortunate thing is that history is written in time, and President Trump still has time to write (right) history. I hope and believe that President Trump can write an America First history that doesn’t require the sacrifice of the principles and ideals that our nation was founded on.
The most telling remark made to me by a member of the executive committee was this: “What you said wouldn’t be offensive if you admitted that you were a Democrat.”
What’s really happening here is the continued condemnation of Republicans who don’t bow down to Ottawa Impact’s sense of what it means to be a Republican.
Nationally we’re witnessing this with the condemnation of Republicans who don’t bow down to Donald Trump. What we’re witnessing is round two of McCarthyism.
President Trump's apparent alignment with Vladimir Putin makes this all the more ironic.
While McCarthy was hell bent on rooting out Communists in America, today’s zealots are hell bent on finding and condemning any Republican who doesn’t fully bend the knee to President Trump. Followers of Ottawa Impact ardently do the same here, seeking to root out anyone who won’t swear allegiance to their ideology.
Considering the blatant misrepresentation of what I said and the mouths from which it came, I count it as an honor to be criticized and condemned/censured by these individuals.
This censure for exercising a Constitutionally protected right to free speech, is even more profoundly telling of how misguided this group has become.
It is for me the third time. The first two times, I was censured with a group of real Republicans who refused to bow down to them, and who to this day, continue to stand up against them.
In the end for Senator Joseph McCarthy, truly patriotic Americans, both Republicans and Democrats stood up and said, enough is enough. McCarthy’s followers on the other hand, dwindled and disappeared and he was left holding a real censure from the United States Senate.
The Ottawa County GOP was once the jewel of the Republican Party in Michigan. When the Ottawa Impact faction rose to power on the heels of Covid, they gutted the local GOP and brought chaos to both party and county.
When stoic, wise, Winston Churchill type leaders like Political Scientist and Hope College Professor Dr. Jack Holmes, who successfully led the Republican party here and throughout the State of Michigan for decades, are unceremoniously kicked to the curb and it is stated, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out Jack,” that should tell the Republican party faithful all they need to know about the character and wisdom of this group.
While it’s not for someone as flawed as I am to lead the charge, I suggest it’s nearing time for the true Republicans in Ottawa County to step up and to “take back” the Ottawa County GOP. It’s nearing time to restore it to the wise, thoughtful, fiscally responsible, and compassionately conservative organization that it once was.
In Chapter One, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats together took back Ottawa County government for all residents.
As we begin to turn the page to Chapter Two where we find the story of the Ottawa County GOP unfolding, after all that has already been accomplished, I am optimistic that that this chapter will be just as good as the first."
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Brandon Hall is a lifelong political nerd from Grand Haven, and is the Managing Editor of West Michigan Politics.
>>>Email him at WestMIPolitics@Gmail.com
