The updated party platform of the Republican National Committee, intended to be a guide for candidates and elected officials, should be that and nothing more, says Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas. Protection of life and the definition of marriage, strongly addressed in previous GOP platforms, were significantly watered down in the revision. There was no mention of a need for congressional action on the abortion issue, fetal tissue research or mention of God bestowing the right to life.
Those omissions shouldn’t stop Republicans from voting their convictions, Moran said on Washington Watch Thursday.
“We need to be rooted in moral absolutes. Life is one of those, and standing with Israel has been a real pillar of the moral truths and moral foundations of our country and of our conservative values over the past several decades,” Moran, in Milwaukee for the final night of the RNC convention, told show host Tony Perkins. “We cannot lose that in action even if it’s not in the written word of what was adopted here on the floor.”
Moran: Stand up for social issues
The scant mention of key social issues is a dangerous path for Republicans, making them less distinguishable from Democrats, Moran said.
“There are things we need to make sure that our actions continue to show strength in the moral issues that have really defined us as a conservative movement going back several generations,” he said.
What happens if the lines become blurred too much?
“We cannot get to a place where we are bound in moral relativism. That is a mistake. That would take us in the wrong direction. That’s the direction of the Democrats. We have to be rooted in the moral truths of God. We cannot get away from that. Once we get away from that as a party and a nation, that’s when our nation is really going to fall in on itself,” the Republican lawmaker said.
Moran said it’s important for Republicans who stand behind the party’s long-held conservative beliefs on social issues to share their concerns with party members who prioritize economic and other issues. He pointed out a slippery slope for Democrats that he says has over time taken the rival party from progressive to socialist.
“Certainly, there are areas where you want to have deep conversations with colleagues and say, ‘We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the Democrats.’ We do not want to be the Democratic Party of the ’90s that has led to the socialist Democratic Party of today. We don’t want to do that,” Moran warned.
Weakened GOP stance on Israel
It’s not only about protection of life when it comes to moral emphasis within the GOP. It should be about standing with Israel as well. The new platform states the need to support Israel, but the language isn’t as strong and is far less meaningful, critics say.
Heath Mayo, the founder of Principles First – a conservative group that does not support GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump – told The Washington Examiner that the revision has “too many core things left out.” He lamented the lack of prominence for Israel, The Examiner reported.
Moran pointed out Israel is one of America's closest allies. “We have to stand steady and firm, and President [Joe] Biden has not done that,” he said.
Moran argued that the just-completed RNC Convention presented a roster of speeches that were “great reminders about why we need to continue to do that. It is in America’s best interests – its national security interests, its economic interests, its foreign policy interests and quite frankly its moral interests – for us to remain allied with a country that shares so many values.”
The U.S. congressman cited the emphasis on God from America’s founders and further similarities with Israel. He added that keeping the Jewish nation as a close ally in the Middle East is about more than history.
“We are a nation that was built on a Judeo-Christian ethic that came from the natural law of God. We share that foundation. We must promote that foundation, not just the history but a future with Israel,” Moran said.
Israel is just one of many areas in which Biden has faltered in foreign policy, Moran said. The week of RNC speeches took aim at the embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan and much more.
Delegates hearkened to the Reagan administration, a time when America’s place on the world stage was much different. While Biden is trying to manage U.S. involvement in wars in Ukraine and Israel, Reagan’s Cold War victory brought about the end of the Soviet Union.
What a second Trump term could bring
Moran noted signs in the arena calling for “peace through strength” – a famous tidbit of Reagan messaging. But he's not seeing that in the current administration.
“The [Biden] term really has been weakness, not only in the Afghanistan withdrawal, but in the China balloongate, not protecting our borders and … the sovereignty of the United States,” Moran emphasized.
“It’s a very different thing than … under President Trump, where we saw lots of strength; and that provided deterrence in this world and provided peace, stability, and prosperity. That’s what we expect in a second [Trump] term as well.”
