The lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia never had a chance of succeeding. There was no way the Supreme Court was going to throw out the election results of four states based on evidence-free allegations of voter fraud. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to even get to the point of evaluating the baseless allegations of fraud by denying Texas’ claim that it had legal standing to challenge how other states conduct their elections. It is a measure of how principle-free Republicans have become that 17 Republican state attorneys general and 126 Republican members of Congress, who traditionally champion states’ rights, would abandon their commitment to federalism and support Texas’ outrageous lawsuit.
Trump is so delusional that he may believe that he lost the election due to massive voter fraud and that he could somehow convince courts to vacate the election results he did not like and throw the election to Republican-controlled state legislatures. The 17 Republican attorneys general and 126 Republican members of Congress know better. So, why did they support Ken Paxton’s lawsuit? The answer is both obvious and appalling. They did so to “virtue signal” their support of Trump to stay in the good graces of Trump and his base. They are terrified of Trump’s post-term political power and of his ability to target them for a primary challenge in the next election if they are perceived to be the least bit disloyal.
The Republican Party has abandoned whatever commitment it may have had to democracy, to federalism, and to truth-telling to obsequious servitude to Trump. Evidently, the GOP has no intention of ending its principle-free transactional relationship with the man it thinks can provide continued access to power. The GOP has failed itself and continues to fail America.