The first Republicans in Congress gave Donald Trump a week to admit he had failed the presidential election. Then the lame duck president was called to spend his day in court where the Trump campaign had amassed the 1-51 win-lose record in attacking Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
Subsequent Republicans have pointed to the so-called “safe harbor” deadline, December 8, when states certify their achievements, as the date when Trump will surely be forced to admit his loss. But that deadline came and went on Tuesday, the White House apparently didn’t even notice.
Now some members of the Republican leadership are beginning to faint that Trump works alone on a calendar and that the political situation in which they live – unable to take the fundamental step as an elected official in the United States Recognition of a legitimate winner of free and fair elections can never be worth it. ending, assuming no courage is called for Trump’s contradiction.
“I don’t know if he will ever let him in,” – John Thune, the Senate’s majority whip, said the Politico on Wednesday. More than 200 Republicans at the congress – about 90 percent of the total population – will not publicly say who won the presidential election, the Washington Post said.
The Republican silence gave Trump an opportunity to extend his attacks on American democracy. The president’s tweeted lies about false election fraud have intensified over the past month and have included simpler ones. message on Twitter #OVERTURN.
The majority of Republican voters who said the election was fraudulent, despite Trump’s own administration making the opposite findings and there is no supporting evidence, continue to rise.
The big bet is smooth. As Trump himself put it on Wednesday, “How do you get a presidency when the overwhelming majority thinks the election is RIGGED?”
Some Republicans insist on the hope that the upcoming events of the handover – future dates on the election calendar – will force Trump to change direction and ease the pressure on them. Next Monday, December 14, the Electoral College will meet to cast votes based on a state certificate of the result.
On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence, President of the U.S. Senate, will preside over the formal session of the Joint Session of Congress, where voter votes will add up and Joe Biden will be formally appointed next president. .
Representative Alex Mooney, a West Virginia Republican who tabled a House resolution Tuesday that did not encourage either Trump or Biden to surrender until all investigations were completed, expressed confidence that the Count of Congress would convince Trump and end his colleagues. listening.
“The end is when the contact list is put up here,” Mooney told the Associated Press.
However, the five weeks since the election have been filled with the erroneous speculations of Republicans about the supposedly imminent moment when Trump will admit the reality and can safely follow their example.
“I think the goal here is for the president and his campaign team to provide space to demonstrate that there is real evidence to support allegations of voter fraud,” one of the Senate’s senior Republican helpers told Reuters on Nov. 10. “If there is, they will sue quickly. If not, we will all move on.
“Someday this has to be given,” said a second aide to Reuters at the time. – And I’ll give him a week or two.
The result is a riskier stance like no other in U.S. history. Refusal to agree on the facts of the election – called on Biden by leading media decision-making offices, including the Associated Press and thus the Guardian on November 7, threatens to undermine voter confidence, distracting the legitimacy of the election. Biden presides and repackages civic norms.
Trump started his party on this unprecedented path by claiming the election was “rigged,” but the Republican leadership has allowed doubts to swell in their silence over the past four weeks.
The President personally called on some local elected officials to review the results. Now, the disputed election has lived an independent political life that the party leadership is unable to clash, even as Trump’s legal challenges collapse and state and national officials have declared it the safest choice in U.S. history.
Republicans say it makes little political sense at the moment to contradict Trump’s views so as not to risk the backlash of his supporters – their own constituents – back home.
Trump’s voters will rely on the January 5 election in Georgia, which will determine Senate control. And while some GOP lawmakers have acknowledged Biden’s victory, most prefer to listen, leaving the process to play “organically,” as one of his aides put it in January.
But election experts warn of long-term damage to the long-cherished U.S. system.
“Confidence in the election is clearly hurting,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican Secretary of State in Kentucky and former president of the National Secretarial Association.
“I hope,” he said, “by December 14,” there will be a few more voices, but in me it will be only until 6 “(January).
Edward Foley, an election expert and professor of constitutional law at Ohio State University, says it’s true that the winner of an election is not officially the elected president until Congress declares it. By voting on January 6, he accepts the results of the election college.
“I’m less worried about the timing, but that it’s going to happen,” he said.
For Americans to “believe” in elections, the losing party must accept defeat. “It’s very, very dangerous if the losing party can’t get there,” he said.
“It’s essential that parties play in that spirit – even if a person, Mr Trump, can’t do it, the party has to do it,” he said.
“The dynamics that have developed since election day are so disturbing that the party is unable to convey this message because they are receiving their signals from Trump.”
