There was plenty wrong with Winston Churchill.

My political hero Pat Buchanan wrote a whole book about that. Besides being an egotist and a very heavy drinker, Churchill was an unbeliever, a religious agnostic at best. A warmonger for most of his life, Churchill had urged Britain into its bloody, pointless involvement in World War I, then presided over the bloodbath landing at Gallipoli.

Churchill’s anti-German stance made him hostile even to the peaceful Weimar Republic. Churchill had old-fashioned racial views (which today get him damned as a racist) and fervently wished to force India to remain a British colony.

But there was a moment when Winston Churchill was absolutely indispensable. In 1940, after France capitulated and the British Army barely escaped from Dunkirk, Churchill was the only person who could have kept Great Britain in the war. All around him, the sober “responsible” politicians whispered that Britain must make a deal with the triumphant Hitler, to save British cities from bombing. (Read historian John Lukacs’ book, Five Days in London, May 1940 to see how close that came to happening.)

It took the wild and reckless warmonger and jingoist to choose “blood, sweat, tears and toil” in 1940 over the prospect of a disgraceful deal with Hitler (who was already persecuting Jews). That’s how history works: God chooses flawed vessels to move with the spirit.

The Indispensable Trump

Likewise, since 2016, Donald Trump has been the vessel for a national revolt against our smug, corrupt, incompetent, and mediocre elites. This onetime playboy and blowhard, who won’t admit his mistakes, racked up a list of flaws that rival Churchill’s. You don’t need me to list them. And like Churchill at his historical moment, Trump is irreplaceable in ours.

Trump alone had the courage to tell the truth about the “forever wars” that so many Republicans had sent other people’s sons to go and fight. Trump was willing to say that our national borders were in crisis. Once he was won over to the pro-life cause, Trump had the courage to choose solidly constitutional justices and stand by them in crisis. Other, more timid Republicans would have blanched at Christine Blasey Ford’s perjury, and yanked Brett Kavanaugh’s name — in favor of some “moderate” whom the left wouldn’t bother to slander. And Roe v. Wade would still be the law of the land.

They Don’t Bother Trying to Imprison Weaklings or Sellouts

The Left knows how crucial Trump as a candidate is. That’s why it’s trying to throw him into prison, along with his lawyers and allies. As I wrote here a few days ago, if we let this regime and its Deep State imprison its opposition during a political campaign, the American experiment is over. Trump for all his flaws is as necessary now as the flawed Winston Churchill was in 1940.

Let me name one other flawed person whose role may prove just as crucial.

What would it mean if Texas went from a red to a purple or even blue state? (Remember that California and New York once regularly elected Republican governors and senators.) It would mean that no pro-life candidate who supports religious liberty could ever again be elected president. That no major state was pushing back against filthy textbooks designed to corrupt our children. That the cause of the constitution was pretty much lost in our country indefinitely.

Did you know how close that came to happening in 2020, in the frenzy of ballot harvesting and fraud enabled by the COVID panic? The chaos and chicanery documented in 2000 Mules from Wisconsin to Georgia to Arizona didn’t happen in Texas. I bet you don’t know what stopped it. Or rather, who.

Ken Paxton Ran Toward the Fire, Not Away From It

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stopped it. He fought a dozen lawsuits funded by George Soros and other conspirators, who sought to throw Texas open to the same corrupt practices that stole the White House and the Senate. And he prevailed. He led the effort among states willing to challenge the 2020 election results.

And now the Democrats are about to drive Paxton from office, with help from squish Republicans who envy Paxton’s popularity with voters, or resent him for daring to run against and beat a scion of the Bush dynasty.

And yes, Ken Paxton is flawed. His marital issues became a minor scandal, and the feds keep making corruption claims — which they never got around to filing, so they can’t be proved or disproved. Ken Paxton probably wouldn’t make a good pastor for your church. Neither would Trump or Churchill. Happily, that’s not the job he’s fighting for.

Double Secret Probation

Right now Paxton is fighting a purely political impeachment based on old, vague, and often frivolous charges. His prosecutors even tried to keep the charges and evidence against him secret — and only revealed them when The National Pulse exposed their shenanigans in the press.

The Texas House, appallingly, voted for this impeachment. (I’ll explain how that happened below.) And now on September 5, the Texas Senate will vote on whether or not to kick Paxton out of office. You can bet that his replacement, whoever he is, will not be fighting election fraud or standing by Donald Trump.

It will take Republicans voting with leftist, pro-abortion Democrats to get Paxton out of the way, so the Soros lawyers can get busy spray-painting Texas deep blue. Sadly, there seem to be a number of potential Texas senators who might be willing to do that. As The Texas Tribune reports:

On Tuesday, Dallas County GOP activist Lauren Davis went on the show of Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, and urged viewers to apply pressure to six GOP senators:

• Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills,
• Bryan Hughes of Mineola,
• Charles Schwertner of Georgetown,
• Charles Perry of Lubbock,
• Drew Springer of Muenster and
• Mayes Middleton of Galveston.

She said Middleton was especially important to lobby given that he was a top donor to Paxton’s primary challengers in 2022.

Forgive Them, for They Know Not What They Do

Now, I’m not saying or even implying that Texas Republican senators who vote to convict and remove Ken Paxton based on these cobbled-together charges are leftists, who want to paint Texas blue. Nor do the Republicans who appear to be turning on Donald Trump and his allies want … a one-party state where the FBI railroads political opposition figures into prison. Nor did Winston Churchill’s timid colleagues in the British Conservative Party want a Nazi-dominated Britain.

That’s just what would have happened if their foolish or cowardly policies had won out, if the flawed, indispensable men who stood in the way of mind-boggling evil had been turfed out for trivial reasons.

Don’t forget that the same Texas legislature that impeached Paxton has been burying and neglecting pro-life legislation, protections for parents’ rights, and restrictions on transgender butchery of minors. The Texas Scorecard made a powerful video about this, for those who are interested.

Do Democrats control the Texas House?

If so, how?

Who let it happen?

Our newest documentary on the #txlege is premiering now:

"The Texas Heist" pic.twitter.com/zOG5UWbziW

— Texas Scorecard (@TexasScorecard) August 17, 2023

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”