~Richland Chronicle Editorial~

President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede caused an unprecedented attack on the Capitol and some Republicans to finally push back.

The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election has been like no other. We have become more privy to the workings of the Electoral College. After the vote tally ends, the individual electors vote in their respective states on Dec. 14. The Certificates of the Vote are signed and documents are delivered to the president of the Senate, secretary of state, the archivist of the U.S. and the judge of the U.S. district court in the district where they met. On Jan. 6, Congress counts the electoral votes in a joint session to certify a winner.

In each election cycle, long after the first Tuesday in November when the general election takes place, the work of the Electoral College has taken place virtually invisible to voters – until now. In years past, the night of the presidential election or soon thereafter, the Electoral College votes are determined by each state as the polls close and are called by various news organizations. Take for example, the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton, who was expected to win that night, lost the Electoral College vote and conceded to Donald Trump. This made for an orderly process and Trump was sworn in as president after all of those steps took place.

However, because Trump hates to lose, according to his ex-wife Ivana Trump in a Nov. 9, 2020 interview with People Magazine, we have watched him fight with all his might. He has filed multiple lawsuits for recounts to overturn results, badgered state election officials, most notably in a recorded phone call to the Georgia attorney general and has continuously alleged a “rigged election” despite losing to Biden by a much larger margin than Clinton lost to him. Given that Trump has vigorously alleged voter fraud for a year, it was not surprising that he refused to concede the election. Trump continued to promote an alternate reality in which he won the election.

His false claims are nothing new. When Barak Obama was president, Trump claimed that Obama was actually not born in the United States and that his birth certificate was not real. Trump repeated this so often, many people accepted it as fact. Obama’s birth was certified by Hawaii state officials. Period.

What is not in doubt is Trump’s unwavering charisma and determination to believe his own narrative, so it wasn’t surprising, then or now, that he gathered a following. Those followers, who believe his baseless claims of voter fraud, were inspired to raid the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Being a U.S. citizen comes with the protection of free speech. What we choose to do with it varies based upon one’s moral compass. Trump’s compass is clearly broken. He emboldened right-wing extremists to overtake the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to avoid joining the list of presidents who were not granted a second term. His behavior is reminiscent of an adolescent throwing a fit in objection to sharing toys, but with deadly results.

The attack on the Capitol while Congress was in session was not just an invasion of a government building. It was an attack on the nation’s institutions and tenets of democracy. The people have spoken, and Joe Biden will be our president on Jan. 20.

There has been a surprising emergence of elected officials treading the line of sedition in their opposition to the role of government. Enter Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who initiated the objection to the Electoral College certification by filing a lawsuit to overturn the election results in the four swing states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for several years. His top staff quit in September accusing the Republican of bribery and abuse of office on behalf of a donor, according to The Associated Press. The Texas solicitor general, who opposed his election lawsuit, resigned Jan. 13.

Given these facts, perhaps Paxton could be written off as just another corrupt politician, but soon after, other politicians joined in. Texas’ own junior senator, Ted Cruz, offered to serve as the trial attorney and 17 other state attorneys general jumped on the lawsuit bandwagon. One hundred and twenty-six Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, many of them from Texas, signed a statement supporting the lawsuit. This is something that has never happened before.

That our elected officials continue to spew propaganda about the election results, which have been upheld by state and federal courts, counted and recounted by state election officials, is outrageous. There is no proof that the election was somehow rigged or otherwise corrupted. These unfounded allegations were rejected by 60 courts.

As citizens who treasure orderly elections, whether they sway our way or not, such extreme legal wrangling in which one state seeks to overturn the election results in another state, is concerning. Thankfully the Supreme Court, which included three of Trump’s appointed justices, said the case had no merit.

Following the Supreme Court decision, many breathed a sigh of relief and brushed off concerns that that Biden’s certification might be contested in the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. Yet Trump continued to claim fraud and relentlessly challenged Vice President Mike Pence to dispute the election.

As the certification got underway, eight Senators and 139 representatives were expected to challenge the results in Arizona and other swing states when a seditious mob overran the Capitol in an incident that left five people dead and caused Congressmen and senators in both chambers to flee to safety for several hours.

A visibly shaken Congress reconvened after the insurrection and finished the work of government. In the end, Pence, Trump’s loyal partner of four years, was democracy’s reluctant savior when he certified the election of Biden.

Now America waits and watches to see if the Senate will convict the president in the second act of this second impeachment drama. Republicans, too, wait to see if the Party of Lincoln will break into two separate parties. Their motives will vary, whether inspired by integrity, political aspirations, a genuine belief that the election was stolen, pressure from their constituents or, perhaps, darker motives.

Will other reluctant saviors join Pence and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the lone Republican Senator who voted to hear the testimony in Trump’s first impeachment trial? Will they join the 10 Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump a second time on Jan. 14?

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been quoted as saying the Republican Party needs to eject Trump in order to survive. Will the Republican Party finally embrace the facts and start walking in truth? For the sake of our democracy, we hope they do.