I wonder how long it will be before someone actually gets hurt of killed because of the continuing propagation of unfounded conspiracy theories about a rigged election and voter fraud. This could be stifled quickly if the Republican leadership had the courage to put country before Trump. But, alas, the Republican leadership are still searching for their collective spines.
Armed protestors gathered outside the home of the Michigan Secretary of Sate screaming falsehoods and obscenities with a bullhorn while she and her family, including her 4-year-old son were inside.1 Why? Voters in Michigan had voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump by about 150,000 votes. It wasn’t even close. Legal challenges were tossed out of court of no evidence of voter fraud and virtually all officials involved in the process attested to the fact that there was no evidence of wide spread voter fraud. How would you like it if a bunch of armed protestors gathered outside of your house when your only ‘crime’ was doing your job?
The Secretaries of State of Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada have all received death threats because Trump supporters, egged on by Trump, will not accept the fact that Trump lost the vote in those states. There have been over 40 lawsuits filed in multiple states and the Trump campaign has lost almost all of them for the same reason – they have yet to produce any evidence in a court of law to support their allegations. “Chris Krebs, former director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, on Tuesday filed a lawsuitafter a lawyer for the Trump campaign said Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot.” (Trump’s lawyer has said he was just joking, but that’s no laughing matter in today’s political environment.)”1 At what point, will some Trump supporting wingnut actually carry through on one of these threats?
To add to this madness, the Arizona Republican Party has retweeted posts asking if people are willing to sacrifice their lives to challenge the results of the presidential election. This is beyond insane. Don’t forget, there was already a group of right-wing idiots who plotted to kidnap and execute Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, because of her orders having to do with the coronavirus restrictions. There are a lot of crazy, armed people out there and the longer President Trump and his sycophants continue this dangerous charade, the higher the probability that someone is going to actually get hurt.
The Republican leadership in Congress could put an end to this nonsense if they wanted to. They obviously have chosen to let Trump continue to undermine democracy in this country based upon their own personal warped political rationalizations. Whatever their reasoning, it is certainly not helping to portray the United States of America in a very favorable light around the world. Once again, Putin and Xi must be laughing their asses off.
I read an interesting article this past weekend by Fareed Zakaria, a journalist and columnist for the Washington Post, in which he made the point that the two-and-a-half-month lame duck session between when a presidential election is held and when a new president is sworn in is much longer than in most other countries. When the constitution was written, there were obviously not things like the internet, airplanes and instantaneous communications so the founding fathers had to allow enough time in the election process for people to travel by the means available then. It made sense to hold the election in early November and have the electoral college meet in mid=December just given the logistics. The same can be argued for the 5-week window between when the electoral college votes and when the new president is sworn in.
We are now witnessing why this lengthy period between the election and the swearing in of a new president is not such a good idea in our modern world. There are two major flaws now apparent in this process. The first is simply what we are witnessing with Trump’s continued unfounded allegations of a rigged election and wide-spread voter fraud. This is like an open wound that is continuing to fester. In previous elections, this hasn’t been much of a problem. However, with someone like Trump in the White House, he just continues to pour salt in this wound. And, his supporters, just get more and more radicalized the longer this drags out.
The second problem is when there is such a vindicative individual as Trump in the White House, you have to be concerned about how much damage they can and will do on his way out the door. We are witnessing this with his continued purge of government agency personnel and replacing them with Trump loyalists weeks before he leaves office. In the business world, when some is fired, they are generally walked out of the building immediately to avoid these types of sabotage. I really think the country (Congress) needs to look at this whole timeline and see if it stills makes sense in today’s world. I think the Trump has shown that it can be a very dangerous 10-week period.
The Electoral College meets on Monday to finalize the vote of president. Let’s hope that after Joe Biden is elected in the Electoral College that some of these spineless, silent Republicans will finally speak up before one or more of these rabid, irrational Trump supporters actually shoots someone. If that were to happen, the blood would be all over the hands of Trump, his toadies, and the entire Republican leadership. What a legacy to leave behind.
“In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Extreme violence in Congress is not new.
https://www.history.com/news/charles-sumner-caning-cilley-duel-congressional-violence