By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gabriel Sterling has emerged as a Republican Party hero.

Finally. Someone has come forth and spoken the harsh truth to those who need to hear it. He has aimed his rhetorical fire directly at Donald J. Trump, the lame-duck president who is leaving office amid a swirl of chaos and confusion. Imagine that.

Who is this fellow? He is a GOP election official from Georgia. He works for the Republican Georgia secretary of state, Ben Raffensberger, who has endorsed the comments Sterling made at the statehouse this week.

Sterling spoke harshly and with intense anger about the death threat leveled against a former Department of Homeland Security official who declared the 2020 presidential election was the most secure in history. The official is Christopher Krebs, who was in charge of election cyber security. He did his job. Donald Trump’s narrative, though, insists there exists widespread voter fraud. Trump fired Krebs.

Then came former federal prosecutor Joseph DeGenova to say that Krebs should be “drawn and quartered” and then “shot.”

Did the president condemn those remarks? Have other Republicans stepped up to verbally body-slam DeGenova? No! Thus, Gabriel Sterling is an angry man. He vented his anger forcefully by condemning Donald Trump’s silence as well as the silence of Georgia’s two GOP U.S. senators — David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — who are facing runoff contests next month.

Gabriel Sterling has said what Republicans across the land should have said long ago. That Donald Trump and his minions are fanning the flames of hatred of the democratic system. Joseph DeGenova symbolizes how far that hatred has gone.

“It must stop,” Sterling said. “It is not right,” he said.

Yes it should. It is wrong to the max for individuals to deliver threats such as what DeGenova delivered.

It also is wrong for high-profile politicians to bite their lips and remain silent when we hear such hatred coming forth into the public domain. To that end, Gabriel Sterling has emerged as a heroic figure because he has shown courage in calling the president what he has proven himself to be.

Donald J. Trump is a craven coward.