NEW YORK, NY Feb. 14 (DPI) – Former Appellate Court Judge J. Michael Luttig has been penning op-eds supporting cleaning up the vaguely worded Electoral Count Act of 1887, whose imprecise language contributed to Trump’s claims on Jan. 6 that the US Congress could overturn election results.

Luttig this week wrote a compelling op-ed in the NYT outlining how leaving the law un-amended could set off chaos in the next presidential election in 2024. Trump himself has stated he opposes amending the law.

Luttig, among other legal historians and scholars, has been waging a persuasive, bipartisan campaign to get Congress to amend the law, and have it state clearly that the US Congress, or the Vice President, has no standing to reverse certified election results provided by the 50 states. And part of Luttig’s argument is intended to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans who might still be interested in the rule of clearly stated law.

But readers posting on the New York Times comment board were surprisingly hostile, blaming all Republicans for the 135-year-old election law’s shortcomings and for the abuses of it, past and future.

Here’s a sampling of the most popular comments:

The true democratic reform would be abolishing the electoral college. If the Republican Party was honest that’s what it would propose. Instead, rather than working to gain more votes, it continues to seek to impose minority rule by force; through the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. And, of course, insurrection, let’s not ever forget.

“Republicans are proponents of limited federal government. They oppose aggregation of power in Washington and want it dispersed to the states.” Untrue. The principle which motivates Republicanism in the US today is oligarchy.

Mr. Luttig makes a reasoned argument but forgets that Trump and most Republican lawmakers are not reasonable. Trump and his minions believe that elections are only valid if they win. The concept of a level playing field potentially benefiting the GOP is flawed because the last thing the GOP wants is a level playing field. Trump himself said it–if everyone votes, the GOP loses. Yes, you can make reasonable progress with a few GOP lawmakers, like Lisa Murkowski and Liz Cheney. But the only way to reason with Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz is to vote them out of office. You want to make the conservative argument for protecting democracy? I’ll reserve a phone booth for your meeting.

The good Judge in fundamentally wrong in his perception of his party. This inclination to supporting Trump and doing away with representative democracy is not a flaw, but a feature of the Republican party in 2022. The GOP has no interest in defending democracy.