Day: January 3, 2021
Republicans used to know how to lose
The President of the United States is trying to conspire to commit election fraud:
Odds are, the Georgia end of this phone call leaked the recording. Raffensperger is pissed, for good reasons.
Ted Cruz, now leading an effort that will culminate Wednesday to overturn election results validated in over 60 court cases, said about Donald Trump four years ago:
Cruz was right then, and wrong now. Trump is not only an inveterate liar, he behaves like a mob boss who can bully his way to anything he wants, including a favorable election result. And Ted Cruz is now helping him make the effort. The reason is clear: Cruz and his ilk hope to avoid Trump’s ire and eventually inherit the support of the two thirds or so of the Republican Party who think Trump can do no wrong.
There really is no hope of overturning the election results. Even if the effort were to succeed in Georgia, Trump would still be short of winning the Electoral College. But Georgia is only one arena of Trump’s game: he is also preparing to encourage violence at demonstrations in Washington on January 6 while Cruz and his sidekicks challenge the election results in Congress. And he may be making phone calls to other state officials. The purpose is to cement Trump’s control of his party and nurture as much resentment as possible, hoping to de-legitimize Biden’s presidency and rally the Republicans to hard opposition in the new Congress.
The question is what effect this will have on democracy in America. The consequences are not likely to be good. Democrats could play Trump’s game the next time a Republican is elected president, but I doubt they will. The Democratic party has nowhere near the cohesion and ideological discipline to mount a serious effort to deny the results of an election. More likely, Republicans will turn again to state election laws to try to limit who gets to vote. They will be challenging election results and trying to manipulate the census for decades to come, because they know their brand of stupid racism can’t win in an increasingly diverse America.
It is hard to over-emphasize how dramatic a departure this Republican behavior is from the past. Here is a defeated Republican candidate just 60 years ago:
I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people of developing, respecting and honoring institutions of self-government. In our campaigns, no matter how hard-fought they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict, and support those who win.
Richard Nixon, addressing the joint session of Congress January 6, 1961
After declaring John F. Kennedy the winner, he received a standing ovation.
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Stevenson’s army, January 3
About a dozen GOP Senators have pledged to challenge the electoral votes from several swing states.
Read their statement. They speak of “allegations” of fraud, not “evidence.” They say a challenge is necessary because so many people, especially Republicans, tell pollsters they believe there was fraud.
And what they propose — which would have to get both houses of Congress to vote such a bill — is what they call an” emergency 10-day audit” of the returns. What they want is a return to the 1877 electoral commission that voted on partisan lines to give the presidency to Rutherford Hayes by a one-vote margin. Wikipedia has a good backgrounder.
How clever! They have a precedent. It sounds so reasonable. And if anyone doubts that this massive task could be completed by January 20, Peter Navarro assures us that “We can go past that date if we need to.”
Last month I sent this CRS report on how the counting is supposed to go, by law.
Today [Sunday] at noon,the 117th Congress begins. In the House, the first item of business is electing a Speaker. But the vote may be quite close.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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