Just the Facts
I am not a Republican, so I don’t “ have a dog” in this fight. In previous essays, I told Republicans to stay out of internal Democratic fights, so I shouldn’t be “kibitzing” into this one. But as an historian and an observer of current affairs, the question is fascinating. Are we seeing the schism of the Republican Party?
The fault lines are clear. There are Republicans who are in favor of contesting the Presidential Election of 2020 in the Congress, and there are Republicans who are not. On the “Trump” side, Republicans claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats cheated to win. They make this claim regardless of the facts – there is NO evidence that the Democrats really cheated.
Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin, made the issue clear on Meet the Press yesterday. “Millions of Americans have questions about the election results, and we need to stop the process and examine what really happened”. His logic is that the questions alone are enough to create the need to stop the election, even though he could not produce any evidence that fraud occurred.
NBC’s Chuck Todd called him out. Todd stated that the millions were only questioning because Johnson and his compatriots told them to question. Johnson’s response was to deflect and accuse the Mainstream Media, “like you,” of covering up fraud. But he couldn’t answer the question – because there is no evidence to back up the charges.
Started the Fire
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley claims that he only is exercising his Constitutional duty to investigate and represent the 72 million Americans who voted for Trump. First, he overstates the numbers. Polling shows that as many as 68% of those Trump voters think the election was rigged. That’s 49 million. But Senator Hawley, like Johnson, has been a leader in raising questions about the election, again, without evidence. He is putting out a fire that he helped to start (WAPO).
Currently twelve Republican Senators will object to the results in the Congress on Wednesday. Nineteen have stated that they accept the election outcome, and twenty have not made it clear where they stand. And there will be as many as one hundred and forty Republican House of Representative members who will object to the count.
Process and Procedure
But to stop the election of Joe Biden as President, it requires a majority of both the House and the Senate. Democrats control the House, who of course will support Biden. Republicans control the Senate by the narrowest of margins, 51 to 48, at least through Wednesday. But unless all of those Republicans, including Sasse, Romney, Murkowski, and Toomey agree to vote against him, Biden will be President. And those four Senators, and several more, have made it clear they will not vote against Biden.
Joe Biden will be inaugurated as President on January 20th. So what is this all about?
Fault Lines
For five years, there has been a segment of the Republican Party who stood against Donald Trump. Former Ohio Governor John Kasich was an early critic, refusing to withdraw from the 2016 Republican primaries. But there were many others, including John McCain, former Republican Presidential nominee. And over Trump’s term others have emerged. Mitt Romney actually voted to remove Trump from office in the impeachment trial.
A segment of the “political operatives” of the Party broke officially away from Trump. Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele spoke out against him. McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt helped organize “The Lincoln Project” that was instrumental in campaigning against both Trump and his supporters in the 2020 election.
And now the Electoral Vote certification process is forcing others to take a stand. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and seven former Republican Secretaries of Defense, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have come out against interfering with Biden’s election.
Super Power
Donald Trump dominates the Republican Party through the power of his influence. It is the “Sanford Effect”. With a single tweet, Donald Trump caused the defeat of South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford in the Republican primary. Trump voters dominate Republican primaries, and as South Carolina showed, Trump can alter the results with a “word”.
This “super power” has led former Trump opponents like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to become sycophants. But no one has reversed course harder than Lindsey Graham, who now hugs Trump as tightly as he can. And the “Sanford Effect” has reached even farther, silencing Republicans like Nikki Haley, Rob Portman, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
For many of the non-Trump Republicans, this fight is about what the Republican Party stands for. They are “traditional” Republicans like Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, worrying about Constitutionalism and deficit spending. But for others, this crisis is about raw politics.
2024 Begins
The Presidential election of 2024 is already on. Here’s the scenario: Joe Biden will be eighty-two, and may chose not to run for a second term. Vice President Kamala Harris will be his “heir apparent”. Unlike Biden, it will be easy to paint Harris as a “radical liberal” (to use Kelly Loeffler’s phrase). So potential Republican candidates are maneuvering for position. Some see themselves as the inheritor of the “Trump core”. Others think the Party will revert back to the Romney-McConnell-Ryan Party of 2012.
But what if the GOP becomes both? The “Lincoln Project” Republicans are never coming back to a Trump-like Party. Will they continue to lead the “schism” into two political forces, Trumpism and old-school Republicanism? And if that happens, how will that impact the electoral future of America? Will the division of the Republican Party push the “moderate Republicans” (think Kasich, or Governors Hogan of Maryland and Baker of Massachusetts) into a physical split with the Trumpers?
Democratic Choices
Democrats are left with a couple of choices as well. A split Republican Party could encourage a split in the Democratic Party. The “Sanders” progressive wing of the Party could decide to branch out on their own, leaving the more moderate Biden wing behind. The moderates might be tempted to move even more to the middle, to “poach” the “middling Republicans”, as they tried to do in the 2020 election.
Or the Democrats could unite to take advantage of a divided GOP. But don’t bet on that. After all, we are Democrats, and that would be far too easy.
The left and the moderate democrats came together to elect Biden. They didn’t want a replay of what happened in 2016. They’ll come together in 2024 as well. One can support left leaning Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well moderate leaning Mikie Sherill. They are both awesome.
You wouldn’t think this would qualify as a profile in courage, but I’m glad for the position he’s taking, anywayh.
Senator Rob Portman
2h ·
The Constitution created a system for electing the President through the Electoral College that ensures the people and the states hold the power, not Congress. I cannot support allowing Congress to thwart the will of the voters.
… after two months of recounts and legal challenges, not a single state recount changed a result and, of the dozens of lawsuits filed, not one found evidence of fraud or irregularities widespread enough to change the result of the election. This was the finding of numerous Republican-appointed judges and the Trump Administration’s own Department of Justice. Every state has now weighed in and certified its electoral slate based on its vote and the process set out in the Constitution.