Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalThe last train for Republicans to board for the preservation of our democracy left on December 14th
That is the day when the Electoral College formally met, and elector slates from each state were officially selected. It was readily apparent, to even casual political observers, that refusing to acknowledge Joe Biden as the American President Elect, after December 14th, would cause fundamental damage to the fabric of American democracy.
Between Election day 2020 on November 3rd, and December 14th, the losing Candidate for President, Donald Trump, had ample time to pursue multiple legal challenges to the election results. He did, they failed, and as a result Trump should have conceded defeat at that point (fat chance of that ever happening.) Once the Electors were formally selected it was time for all Republicans in positions of trust in America to notify Donald Trump that the game was over, that the final buzzer had sounded, and that Joe Biden had won. Most of them didn't, and silence at that point became complicity.
Prior to December 14th, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere could invoke plausible deniability, claiming that they took no part in furthering any attempted coup. The President deserved his day in court, the Electoral College had not yet met, yada, yada. But all yadas ceased on December 14th.
Any blood that is shed in America as a result of "civil unrest" over the 2020 election results, is on the hands of all those Republicans who did not formally recognize Joe Biden as President Elect after the Electoral College met. Their refusal to embrace and promote the sacred American principle of "the peaceful transfer of power" at the moment when their positive example was so deeply needed by America's democracy makes them liable for all of the damage Donald Trump and his most deranged followers have and are continuing to cause .
By not forcefully confronting "the leader of their Party" with the stark truth by December 15th at the latest, those Republicans emboldened Trump to forge deeper into his conspiratorial swamp, allowing him to launch ever more toxic attacks on the foundations of our constitutional order. Most gambled that Trump would sulk at worse while they humored him, bitterly complaining to his dying day that he "was robbed" while grifting millions off of his grievance. They gambled wrong, and it is America that will suffer the consequences of their bet placed against democracy.
The Republican Sedition Caucus presents its most visible members in Congress today, with starring roles reserved for those who attempt to reject the seating of electors from States that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won. They will be in the spotlight, but behind them seeking shadows to remain cloaked in, are every Republican member of Congress who refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden was our President elect by December 15th at the latest.
Raffensperger IS a hero for standing up to Trump regarding Georgia's election results. But...
That doesn't mean he is otherwise a "good guy". It doesn't mean that in other aspects of his life he can be assumed to be "reputable"or "civic minded", let alone reasonable in his political views. For all I know maybe Raffensperger has committed criminal acts in regard to voter suppression, but even if he's avoided overtly illegal actions, he has been guilty of voter suppression, both in the past AND in the present. Still, I repeat, Raffensperger IS a hero for standing up to Trump regarding Georgia's election results.
Many heroes are deeply flawed and some are generally nasty, but when the chips were down, in some specific instance, they came through when those around them couldn't or wouldn't. A man who pulls a child out of a burning car might be deselect in child support for his own kids A convict volunteer forest fire fighter, who risked his life to save others, might have been serving time for some ugly crime that endangered or even harmed others.
The fact that he was just doing his job doesn't negate Raffensperger hero status in this instance. Most heroes will tell you that they were either just doing their job, or that they just did what anyone else would have done, who find themselves in that position. Soldiers say that, firefighters say that, bystanders who tackle a gunman say that, but in reality it isn't that straight forward. Lot's of people in those positions would not have taken that degree of risk. So I personally credit Raffensperger for not only putting country over party, but doing so under the brightest of spotlights, defying the most vindictive of would be tyrants, while no doubt generating a stream of death threats against him and his family for doing so, threats that can not simply be dismissed as unlikely to pose any real threat to him. In other regards I still think he's predominantly a jerk.
In Sports sometimes a player or a team will attempt to in some way cheat to increase their chances of winning. Some pitchers put an illegal substance on the ball they are about to throw, and the Houston Astros wantonly stole signals from opposing teams. And then you have a place like North Korea where any athlete who "competes" against the "Beloved Leader" in any game or sport knows they damn well better lose to him if they want to stay alive. If the Republican Party is analogous to the Astros in this metaphor, then Trump is in a league with Kim. Trump is working to bring about full frontal authoritarian rule in America, and Raffensperger is among a small group of Republicans who, while playing a pivotal role, literally stood in the way of Trump advancing that goal.
Anyone notice how the media suddently stopped talking about COVID, COVID, COVID, after the election?
Me either.
Has The Lincoln Project come out with an add on this yet? If not, someone should.
Logic 101 for those who may have "reason to believe" the election was stolen from Trump
And unfortunately that supposedly (if you take them at their public word) includes many dozens of Republican members of Congress. Giving them every conceivable benefit of the doubt there is nothing wrong with someone thinking they have "reason to believe" virtually anything. That is called a hypothesis. Scientists, for example, explore them all the time. So do homicide detectives and many other people employed in all kinds of professions. However a "reason to believe" something is not a means to determine anything. The alternate term for describing a hypothesis is a "hunch". People get hunches for all kinds of reasons, including "something just doesn't seem right" or "it would make sense to me if".
People who get enthralled enough by their hunches go on to develop a "theory" to explain them. A theory is essentially an exercise in connecting enough potentially meaningful dots, while filling in the spaces that remain with speculation, until a picture can be discerned that somewhat resembles and fleshes out the original hypothesis. Some theories ultimately get accepted as likely being true by a broad cross section of society after they are rigorously examined and tested by those who are not personally invested in believing them.
A theory is just a theory without sufficient evidence to back it up. There once was a theory that the Sun revolved around the Earth, based, in part, upon casual (though compelling) observation. BUZZZ. Wrong. I remember a theory from my youth about Paul McCartney being dead, based, in part, on "proof" revealed by playing slowed down backwards sections of certain Beatles songs. BUZZZ. Wrong
For the sake of discussion let's just say that, in theory, it is possible "to argue" that the election was stolen from Trump. To engage in that discussion, however, the counter "theory" that Trump could have legitimately lost the election not only must also be faced, it has to be "debunked", because Trump having actually lost is the conclusion that all of the currently known facts fully support, as reflected in official duly certified actual election results. Anyone who may have "reason to believe" that Trump "was robbed" must thoroughly refute the currently established facts in order to have their personal "theory"even considered, let alone taken seriously. If some homicide detective "had reason to believe" that a woman did not die of natural causes, but instead was murdered by her husband, he doesn't get to "lock him up" without solid supporting evidence, let alone indict him, let alone convict him of the "alleged crime."
Our system of justice functions with the clear understanding that occasionally a "guilty party" will escape from being arrested based on a lack of evidence, in order to ensure that countless innocent individuals are not imprisoned without having to produce actual evidence that justifies their imprisonment. In regards to last November's Presidential election, a slew of "homicide detectives" were deployed nationwide to seek out any admissible evidence to indicate that some kind of crime occurred. That's a literal statement. Barr gave all of the Federal Attorneys clearance to pursue any possible lead that might unearth evidence of any election fraud. They got nada, not a single shred of actual evidence that could hold up in any court in the nation.
For all the Republican members of Congress who want to invalidate the votes of millions of American citizens, who lawfully participated in their 5 targeted "swing states" that Joe Biden has been officially certified as having won by the Electoral College as established by our constitution, that would be the moral and legal equivalent of my aforementioned hypothetical homicide detective imprisoning his so called "murderous" husband for life. Doing so after not being able to convince any court in the nation that his "suspect" was in fact guilty of any crime, simply because that detective "had reason to believe" that the guy must have done the deed.
I don't care what wacko conspiracy theories voters back at home may have bought into about Biden having stolen the election from Trump, no one produced any actual evidence to prove it. The courts have ruled, the electors have certified. All members of Congress, regardless of their ideology or political leanings, regardless of whatever "hunches" they might still harbor about how the election "could have been" stolen, are now obligated to officially install Joe Biden as President, or they have abandoned any shred of adherence to our constitutional system of laws.
I will acknowledge Republicans who vote to certify the electors from all 50 states next week.
However much I might detest some of them, and strongly disagree with virtually all of the rest of them, I will accept that they belong to an American opposition political party. Those who vote to throw out electors from some States that Biden won (conveniently just enough to "swing the election" to Trump) I will henceforth consider to belong to an organized conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States of America. They will be no more American than Jefferson Davis and Robert E.Lee were after the South succeeded from the United States of America at the start of the Civil War.
I will leave it to future leaders and statesmen to determine whether their prior status as Americans duly sworn to uphold our Constitution can at least partially be restored after some kind of Truth and Reconciliation process is completed, but at least until such time I will view them as traitors, period.
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