I have tweeted prolifically about this topic, so likely readers know my opinion (if the title doesn't already tip them off).
But my position is not as obvious as it might seem, despite my being a Never Trumper; I did not dispute the 2016 election results. I don't have a dog in this fight; I supported LP nominee Jo Jorgensen and opposed both Trump and Biden.
In most Presidential elections I have voted in, my chosen candidate lost cleanly. I have had to accept the choices of my fellow Americans. My candidates lost gracefully and honorably transitioned to their successor from the other party (especially the Bush's). McCain even defended Obama from one of his supporters' attacks at a townhall. There have been peaceful transitions, a remarkable testament to the resiliency of our representative democracy.
I knew, first of all, Trump was holding bad cards heading into the election; recessions had ended Carter's and Bush 41's attempts to win reelection. Trump badly handled the COVID-19 crisis and we had huge drops in jobs and the economy; it was bad enough Trump almost never had a net positive approval rating going into this year. Trump trailed badly in almost every pairwise poll with Biden, and if you look at the overall vote, Biden won 51.4% of the vote, near 4.5% and over 7 M more votes than Trump. Infamously, the electoral college was decided by a number of close states: AZ, NV, WI, PA, GA, and MI, with only NC going to Trump.
Second, Trump had been playing coy for months preceding the election over whether he would concede an election loss to Biden. I knew he was still in a state of denial over losing the plurality vote to Clinton in 2016, arguing "illegal aliens" made up Clinton's margin over him. He had been fighting Vote By Mail for months, arguing fraud from the get-go. I knew there was no way he was going to concede gracefully and he would be pushing the "fraud" talking point.
If there's anything as annoying as Trumpian excuses for Trump's inevitable loss, it's seeing the mainstream media's repetitious debunking the claim. Still, after the states certified Biden's victory in the electoral college last month, with all legal challenges rebuffed by the courts, I thought the Trumpkin revolt would subside in the face of reality and the likelihood of a political pushback (sore losers aren't well regarded by general votes). I was wrong.
Mo Brooks (R-AL) announced his intent to challenge Jan.6 largely ceremonial counting of electoral results. There are rumors that Trump was trying to push Pence as head of the Senate as VP to reject state electors from flip states. and accept rogue Trump elector slates. Nearly 140 GOP House members are expected to join Brooks in a litmus test over Trumpian allegiance. Still, they needed a US senator to join forces, and Hawley accepted the challenge, This was not good news for US senators facing tomorrow's runoff election in Georgia. This basically puts nearly 40% of GOP senators up for reelection in 2022 of potentially alienating independent support by supporting Trump against the legal electors or a potential primary challenge. But some 11 GOP Senators, a few incoming, signed on over the weekend:
The group includes Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Mike Braun of Indiana, and Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
Oh, of course, they'll put lipstick on that pig. Hawley doesn't like what he sees as an "illegal" extension of accepting in-transit mail ballots after Election Day in Pennsylvania, while others insist on the imminent need to investigate discredited crackpot claims of election fraud, hypocritically trying to federalize state issues. Cruz is particularly disingenuous, the last Republican I voted for as a Republican in SC, as a Trump protest. According to him, we can have an emergency short 10-day investigation based on bogus election fraud claims, playing to the base of Trumpkin cultists. Cruz was once a star collegiate debater I admired; how Cruz went from being Trump's chief opponent in 2016 to his water boy in the US Senate, I'll never understand.
This is looking like a GOP death wish. It puts hyperpartisanship in Congress to its extreme. It's all for show because Biden's victory on Wednesday is inevitable. Why Cruz and others are following Pied Piper Trump to their demise just baffles me.
I feel another rant coming on later this week: the revelation over the weekend how Trump tried to extort the Georgia Secretary of State to throw the state election to him. This is a criminal act. More later.
