Republicans, if they really want unity, need to talk the talk AND walk the walk. Time is running out to either step up for unity or step away into political purgatory and ultimate oblivion. It’s their choice.
When Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump said before the 2016 election that if he didn’t win, it would be stolen from him due to voter fraud. That seemed like defensive political strategy at the time, something he would have to back up with facts when the election occurred. He won that election by only about 80 thousand votes spread across three states.
In the runup to the 2020 election, Mr. Trump once again claimed that if he lost the election, it would be due to voter fraud. He lost in an election where a record 150 million voters decided if Mr. Trump deserved a second term, and a 7 million more voters for Joe Biden said “no,” including Republicans and Independents who had given Mr. Trump a chance but found his behavior pattern not suitable for re-election. The subsequent Georgia senate runoff on Jan. 5 proved the point when the contending candidates lost important Republican backing in the suburbs, probably a result of Mr. Trump’s continuing efforts to denigrate the election process.
Meanwhile came the legal maneuverings. The lawyers who represented Mr. Trump were vociferous in their public proclamations they had evidence to back up claims of fraud. The problem was there was no credible evidence presented in even a single court of law. While his team of lawyers claimed publicly they had evidence of fraud, at no time in any case did they tell the judge(s) in pre-trial hearings they actually were in possession of such evidence; doing so would have been a serious misrepresentation, and lawyers knew they would be subject to punishment by the Court. In other words, their premise of election fraud to the public was a lie from the beginning, and lawyers – officers of the court – did not have the goods to claim otherwise, lest they be sanctioned, fined, and or disbarred.
In case after case, about 60 of them in a row were dismissed precisely because there was no credible, admissible evidence provided to the Courts. Some of the judges, Republican judges nominated by Mr. Trump, were less than kind in their evaluation of his attorneys and their case.
Yet public claims of a stolen election, by these same lawyers, persisted even after repetitive court defeats, because all the lawyers knew there would be legal consequences of making false representations to the Court, but also that there is no law against lying to the public or the press.
Mr. Trump was, from the beginning, relying on whichever cases he lost, despite the lack of evidence of fraud, to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, where he expected loyalty from “my judges” (and especially his newly appointed judge in late-September, Amy Barrett) to toss out the Electoral College votes of contested states. Surprisingly only to Mr. Trump and his followers, the Supreme Court essentially followed the rule of law and backed up lower courts’ decisions, and it ruled against Mr. Trump. They would not even hear the case where plaintiffs argued standing in states other than their own.
.In short, there was never any evidence presented, as promised repeatedly, of any fraudulent activity that would change the outcome of the election in any state there was not one iota of factual information presented in 60 courts of law that supported Mr. Trump’s position that the election was “stolen” from him. Mr. Trumps claims were, by contrast, entirely political theater to try and retain power outside the election process, aided and abetted by those who would also lose power.
A clear majority of Mr. Trump’s supporters, federal and state officers and members of the public alike, continued in their claims of a stolen election based upon nothing but a belief that such a thing had occurred. It was a belief unsupported by evidence, initiated and perpetrated by Mr. Trump and his advisors, and amplified to the public day after day, week after week, month after month by conservative media outlets and social media platforms that preferred theatrics over facts.
As last resort, Mr. Trump and others, including the ironically named Rule of Law Defense Fund (an affiliate of the Association of Republican Attorneys General), called for and supported demonstrations to negate the legal Electoral College results, resulting in the planned and coordinated insurrection at our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6.
On Jan. 6., Republican Members of Congress immediately objected to certification of Arizona electors, and were prepped and eager to do the same for Pennsylvania and other states that had already been legally certified. The Arizona and Pennsylvania objections were later voted down by the House and by the Senate after the insurrection was quelled.
The insurrectionists showed up, planted pipe bombs in the city, and they carried with them guns prohibited by law in the Capitol; they paraded a Confederate flag in the halls of Congress; they possessed Molotov cocktails and wielded plastic handcuff ties meant for hostage-taking; they wielded clubs and destroyed media equipment while hurling threats of violence at members of the press; they forced the entrance doors open and ransacked the Capitol; they threatened the lives of the vice president and other members of Congress who did not and would not go along with their intended plan; a Capitol policeman was bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher; and four insurrectionists also died. These are just a few of many examples of a presidential-inspired coup, an insurrection based on a lie.
Despite the carnage just hours before, several of the Senators remained adamant in their vocal efforts to object to Electoral College certification that would result in nullifying the votes of 81 million Americans, a 7 million voter majority in the 2020 election.
Thankfully, Republican leadership had a hand in shutting down objections to the Electoral College count, and Vice President Pence delivered the final results, ensuring that Mr. Biden would be our next president. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump had put his own vice president in harm’s way to fulfill his wish to stop the Electoral College for simply doing its job.
In summary, Mr. Trump instigated and approved of these seditious acts that, unless and until Republican lawmakers and conservative media agitators admit to both Mr. Trump’s original and faulty premise for the subsequent insurrection as well as his and their culpability in its outcome, there will be no “unity” in this country.
It is up to Republicans and conservative media outlets and social media platforms to first admit there was no widespread election fraud that would affect the outcome, and that President-elect Joe Biden won the election fair and square. They need to send that very strong message to a duped public that will, hopefully, be viewed by all to be a first step in “unity” and a national healing.
Anything short of such an admission will be considered a failure of partisan conservatives to be serious about unity and further demonstrate a failure to learn any valuable lessons from this unfortunate debacle, especially with respect to current evidence of further insurrectionist acts expected prior to the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20.
Excuses, obfuscation, and further denial of provable facts for the origins, build-up, and consequences of the insurrection will not be held as sincere or credible by the American public.
All this, and then add a purposeful misrepresentation of medical facts and public health and safety protocols by Mr. Trump, once again amplified by conservative media and social platforms, during a serious national and worldwide pandemic. Mr. Trump downplayed the pandemic in its early stages, fearing it would negatively affect his re-election prospects. The ever-rising mortality rate is now well on its predicted trajectory to killing at least 500,000 Americans, a vast majority of deaths totally unnecessary, primarily because our head of state has behaved so irresponsibly and provided virtually no effective leadership throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Who needs to provide the seeds of unity? Republicans and complicit media outlets who regurgitated and amplified the lies and distortions of Mr. Trump, that’s who.
