Coup attempt by GOP on January 6 is beyond disgusting

Hines Brian January 2, 2021No Comments

If you're a Republican who isn't planning to end your allegiance to the GOP, either you are unaware of the highly unpatriotic coup attempt being planned by your political party in Congress on January 6, or you're OK with this shameful effort to overthrow the lawful result of the 2020 presidential election in favor of a wanna-be authoritarian, Donald Trump.

I'm hoping that the former is the case.

Maybe you've been busy with Christmas and New Year celebrations and haven't paid much attention to the news. In that case, I'm sharing some Twitter tweets and a Washington Post opinion piece that will bring you up to speed on what a dozen Republican Senators and reportedly at least 120 Republican House members are plotting to do next Wednesday.

That's when the usually ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes will take place. Sure, there's a process laid out in law for what's to be done if a state has two slates of contested electors. But all the states have certified their slate of electors, so there's no decision for Congress to make about who gets each state's electoral votes.

Which isn't stopping the coup attempt. Any Republican who doesn't condemn this disgusting plot to subvert our democracy — a first in the history of the United States — has decided that loyalty to Trump is more important than loyalty to our nation.

Check out a Washington Post opinion piece, "Cruz disrupting the electoral college count won't change anything. It can still hurt democracy."

Sen. Ted Cruz’s 11th-hour effort to derail certification of Joe Biden’s election victory is the wrong solution to a non-problem at the wrong time. Fortunately, it also won’t succeed, but it nonetheless provides one more alarming sign of the perilous state of our democracy.

Cruz (R-Texas) and 10 colleagues announced Saturday that they will vote to challenge electoral college votes in “disputed states” when Congress meets Jan. 6, though it was unclear how many states that will be. In practical effect, the move adds nothing but numbers to the process that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had already vowed to set into motion: two hours of debate, in both the House and Senate, on each state the Republicans challenge.

This will greatly slow what should be a straightforward process, but the bottom line is clear: Unless Vice President Pence, in his presiding role as president of the Senate, were to unexpectedly deviate from the procedures established by Congress in 1887 — a truly lawless move that would be swiftly resisted by senators and representatives of both parties — the outcome remains inevitable.

Nonetheless, the fact that a dozen senators and senators-elect, along with apparently more than 100 House members, want to disrupt congressional ratification of the electoral college result is one more horrendous sign of the severity of the disease afflicting the United States’ democratic system. It will make it even harder for Biden to heal this pathology of partisan polarization, as he has promised to do.

As shown below, Chris Hayes points out that the only evidence being put forward by Republicans of serious fraud in the presidential election is the assertion that after months of falsely claiming that this non-existent fraud existed, now the GOP is using the fact that many people in their party believe the lies they were told is reason enough for Congress to hold off on declaring Joe Biden the victor — which he certainly is.

I've also shared a tweet that shows the names of the disgusting anti-democratic senators who have joined Ted Cruz' Crazy Club, and an assortment of other tweets — including a series from attorney Max Kennerly debunking the ridiculous claim that fraud enabled Biden to win the election.