Republican vote against Biden’s victory will go down in flames on January 6th, but it might mark the Trump party’s beginning.
It’s a rainy Sunday in Washington, DC. While The New Year celebration provided a brief virtual escape from the national conversation’s reality, including the pandemics, we are far from sailing into the calm political waters. The next week will settle the Senate’s destiny. President Trump is holding one of his big rallies in Georgia on Monday to cement his conservative cause legacy. If Kelly Loeffler and David Perdu win the election, Trump will take all the credit and increase the leverage to call the Republican Party his own. If he loses, he will go down in history as the ultimate loser who could not accept Biden’s victory.
January 6th
“Stop the Steal” rally in Washington DC will happen on the same day as the vote to uphold the Electoral College vote certification. With the rebellion inside GOP and on the nation’s capital streets, January 6th can mimic those election protests we usually see in Serbia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Post rally violence, once the sun sets, is somewhat guaranteed. The last two post-election March for Trump protests in Washington were not free from incidents, and Proud Boys, BLM, and Antifa are sure to be in attendance. Scenes from D.C by night are not pleasant for journalists to be part of to report. As someone who grew up in the era of protests against Milosevic, I can see many scenarios of how things can erupt and go wrong when provocateurs are fully armed.
On the Senate floor, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is leading the way along with Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Indiana), Steve Daines (R-Montana), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), John Kennedy (R-La.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), soon to be inaugurated Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) for a vote against the certification of the 2020 Election. What does Ted Cruz want? They are calling for “an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states”.
To the surprise of many, Lindsey Graham, who used to play golf with Trump, is not joining the rebels, not officially and not yet. Still, given that VP Mike Pence now supports 12 senators, anything can happen until Wednesday.
“The Vice President welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th,” Marc Short, Pence’s Chief of Staff said in a statement. With Pence in support of the objection of Biden’s victory, more elected Republicans will likely join.
Josh Hawley ( R-Missouri), who is leading his independent insurgency against the results and irregularities of the 2020 election, says that he wants to open a national debate on election irregularities in Pennsylvania in an email issued to Senate GOP Conference last night.
The Republican party is on its way to break down.
“Vote to affirm the 2020 presidential election,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania.) is hitting hard at the 12 senators determined to challenge Biden’s election for the United States president.
“A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in swing states like Pennsylvania directly “undermines this right,” Toomey said in a statement.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the move “an egregious ploy” that “dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic.”
The vote will be symbolic and stands no chance at overturning the election results. It will undoubtedly go down in flames. The 12 senators know that, so why are they doing it?
Since the impeachment and before the election of 2016, the Republican party had a movement of Never Trumpers emerge and culminate with the Lincoln Project, which did more damage to Trump’s re-election than any opposition effort of the Democratic party. “RINO,” which stands for Republican in name only, is still a prominent faction in the GOP ranks, and if there is a message that Ted Cruz aims to send is that they won’t tolerate defiance of any kind.
“As the sun sets on 2020, remember that we’re never going back to the party of Romney, Flake, and McCain. The Republican Party is now, and forever will be, one for the working man and woman! God bless”, GOP in Arizona made it clear, setting Meghan McCain on fire.
Honestly whomever is running this twitter account can go to hell. https://t.co/mH2pMzb0YW
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 2, 2021
The forthcoming primaries are just two years from now, and those who are for re-election will face challenges within GOP if they do not show unity with Trump. Republicans need Trump’s base, or at least, it is what they believe.
If you ask Paul Ryan, who stepped down from the political stage just in time before the big moral dilemma hit his party, he will also tell you that the Republicans need Trump’s base. If Lincoln Project goes ahead and forms a new party, it may end up being a minority. Center-right and center-left options have disappeared in the uncivil war gripping the nation for some time now. Even the media landscape turned hyper-partisan to meet the audience’s expectations. None of that is posed to change anytime soon. The knives are out and will stay that way for most of Biden’s presidency. Should Perdu and Kelly Loeffler win on Tuesday, expect to see one of the most epic political weeks in American election history.
Buckle up.