As of this morning, the New York Times has declared Raphael Warnock as the winner in the Georgia Senate race against the insufferable Kelly Loeffler. Jon Ossoff also looks set to win his race against the Covid-infected David Perdue. These wins will spell the end of the McConnell era. However, Trump has announced plans to bring chaos to DC before Congress meets this afternoon to confirm the results of the Electoral College.
Trump and his band of Bolshevik “Proud Boys,” threaten to bring violence to the streets of DC unless their demands are met and Pence throws the election in Trump’s favor. Were Pence to cave-in and abuse his ceremonial role to reject the results of the Biden win, American democracy would end.
The declaration of Trump as winner of the 2020 election would spell the end of representative democracy in the United States. It would be the start of a dark period where the will of a violent minority overrides the will of a majority that has yet to rise to the challenge posed by Trump. The threat is so real that even Dick Cheney has warned, along with all the other living former Secretaries of Defense, that the military must stand aside and not take Trump’s side in his transparent usurpation of power.
This is not hyperbole. The threat is clear and present. On January 20th, at noon, Joe Biden will become President of the United States. This chapter cannot be forgotten, or forgiven. Sedition charges must be brought against those guilty of plotting with Trump to undo the 2020 election and if there is violence in DC this afternoon, those responsible must be held accountable not just for disturbing the peace, but for plotting against the republic. If Republicans are forgiven for their behavior over the past weeks, there is nothing preventing them from doing this again. The past is prelude, and there must be a reckoning that what was done by Cruz and his confederates was not freedom of expression, but a calculated gambit to end democracy. The kind view is that these opportunists are simply vying for the Trump base for when they run for the presidency in 2024. But this is overthinking the problem. The root cause is that the Republican party is against democracy, period.
The Constitution charges Biden with defending the country from enemies both foreign and domestic. What Trump and his minions have done is nothing short of insurrection. Congress should act too, and both the House and the Senate should investigate the matter seriously and expel those members who have taken part in this shameful charade.