While it has been like watching a ship turn in a harbor, the Republican admonitions of the candidacy of the latest former president are slowly piling up. Since Donald Trump’s efforts to incite, invite and inspire the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol last January 6 to secure his status as president, I have long felt he was done as a political candidate. I still do.

Yet, after initial backlash against him by Republicans, too many have backslid and have tried to whitewash what happened in an Oz-like fashion. Now, there is more than a trickle occurring where admonishing the former president’s candidacy is not the kiss of death in Republican worlds as it once was. The other day, I posted a well-articulated letter to the editor from a woman who called herself a “sane conservative” who said she has no candidate, the former president lost the election and referenced the GOP as not living up to its ideals.

In an article called “Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association” by Nicole Gaudiano of Business Insider, the following negative endorsement is revealed.

“The Republican chairman of the National Governors Association said on Saturday that Donald Trump should not lead Republicans or the country again.

‘I do not believe Trump is the one to lead our party and our country again, as president,’ Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Insider on the sidelines of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, DC.

Insider asked Hutchinson whether he wants Trump to run following a video that recently surfaced in which Trump declares on the golf course that he is ‘the 45th and the 47th’ president.

Asked who should lead instead, Hutchinson said ‘that’s what the election is all about.’“

The reason I am highlighting these negative endorsements of Trump is the wrong question is being asked by Republicans. It should not be whether Trump could win again? The question is how can someone vote for a president who not only consistently lies to and bullies people, but has betrayed his country and was so incompetent and controlling in his pandemic response, doctors, epidemiologists and data scientists in and out of government had to be secretive as they bandied together to get information out about the disease?

Taking the former president at his word is not only a fool’s errand, it is dangerous to the lives of people.