Is there a grown-up left in the GOP?

As America staggers toward the finish line of 2016’s astonishingly undignified and embarrassing presidential election, our thoughts begin to turn to the day after November 8 – when, if the averages of reputable polling organizations prove out, Hillary Clinton will be our President-elect.

How, we have begun to wonder, will Clinton be able to govern? If House Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah – who has served as that body’s lead investigator in a slew of failed inquiries conducted only to bring her down – has his way, the new President will continue to face “years” of investigations. And if Republicans manage to upset current polling trends and retain control of the Senate, she will find herself dealing with a GOP majority that Arizona Sen. John McCain already promised “will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton…would put up.”

It seems Republicans are determined to extend the eight-year war against all things Obama – birthed the evening of President Obama’s January 20, 2009, inauguration by a cabal of 13 GOP Congressmen, in a dinner meeting with GOP consultant Frank Luntz and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But what does their unremitting, unrepentant opposition to America’s first African-American President have to do with their unremitting, unrepentant opposition to America’s first woman President?

I think it has less to do with either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton than it does with the Republican Party’s unwillingness to confront the reasons for its failure to win in 2008, 2012 or this year. The political “autopsy” conducted after Mitt Romney’s failed campaign in 2012 gave the party a crystal clear path to follow in order to regain public support – namely, make the GOP more appealing (heck, barely palatable would be a good start) to women, minorities and immigrants.

But instead of heeding that advice – and trading their rank obstructionism for productive partnership during President Obama’s second term – the GOP continued to just say no to anything and everything he proposed. And instead of taming the twin beasts of the Tea Party and birther movements, the party continued to allow their race-driven hate mongering to fester and infect its ranks. It wasn’t until late in this year’s presidential campaign season that the GOP’s presidential candidate – who fed birther conspiracies for years to boost his own standing among Republican voters – was finally forced to grudgingly admit that our President is indeed a U.S. citizen, born in the U.S.A., and legally entitled to hold office.

So I ask: Is there a grown-up left in the GOP? Is there anyone who can take charge of the party and guide it back to responsible behavior and a focus on effective governance?

Is there anyone who will tell Jason Chaffetz to cool it with the investigations that lead nowhere – wasting time and taxpayer money and trying the public’s patience – most notably the patience of those GOP voters whose votes they’ve won by pledging legislative action but never following through?

Is there anyone who will tell John McCain – as well as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who first pledged GOP Senate obstruction of any Clinton Supreme Court nominee – that it is the Senate’s duty to advise and consent, and that nothing in the U.S. Constitution permits them to shirk that duty until the president doing the nominating happens to share their party ID?

Is there anyone who will tell the Tea Party Republicans currently blockading legislative action in the House of Representatives that this is not how government works – that a minority faction does not have the right to tell the rest of the U.S. government what to do? That compromise is not a dirty word, but is, in fact, the path toward rational, middle ground amalgamation of opposing points of view?

Is there anyone who will tell GOP legislators who think their job is to oppose any legislation proposed by a colleague with a “D” after his or her name that Democrats are not the enemy? That our enemies are not found within the halls of Congress – they are found in the dictatorships and autocracies of Russia, China, North Korea, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere?

Is there anyone who will remind the GOP of that old-fashioned construct – that, while foreign policy issues can and should be debated energetically between members of Congress and the executive branch, when foreign policy direction is set by the President, partisan politics must go no farther than the water’s edge?

Is there anyone who will remind the GOP that facts matter? That it’s okay to form differing opinions, but that all opinions must be based on fact?

Is there anyone who will teach the GOP that science is real, and climate change is happening?

Is there anyone who will explain to the GOP that ours is a nation founded on religious freedom, and that there is no “Church of America” specifically because our founders chose to impose no religious viewpoint or orthodoxy on a free people?

Is there anyone who will reinforce for the GOP that diversity is our strength and a beacon of hope to refugees from around the globe?

And most important – is there anyone who will remind every Republican who takes the oath of office as a Senator or Representative that they have sworn to uphold the Constitution – not to do their party’s bidding or their pastor’s bidding or some lobbyist’s bidding – but to do the people’s business and do it responsibly and well?

If that person speaks up and takes charge of the Republican Party, he or she might be able to save the GOP from implosion, and our nation from years more of dissension and dysfunction. But if there is no adult remaining in the Grand Old Party, I don’t know how much longer it can sustain itself as a viable political entity.

As a Democrat, it’s not my personal concern. But as an American, I’m sick and tired of having to counter the efforts of a Republican Party whose only focus seems to be on ginning up pseudo scandals to prevent the success of its opposition and try to remain vaguely relevant to the political process. I’d like to see the Democratic Party’s  “loyal opposition” grow up and start behaving like adults again.

It would do everyone in the nation a world of good.