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Donald Trump’s Maverick super-loyalists are set to put on a daring show in Washington next week by voting against the official constituency vote count certifying Joe Biden’s victory.
While the outlier tactic won’t be enough to stop Biden from becoming the 46th president, it will serve to disrupt Congress, strengthen Trump, and set a sour tone for political cooperation with the new Democratic administration.
Two Republican members of the House of Representatives reportedly told CNN, without disclosing their names, that they expected around 140 GOP colleagues to vote against a procedural certification vote in a joint session of Congress on the 6th. January. The strategy is a testament to the outgoing president’s continued grip on an important faction of the party, political observers said on Friday.
Peter Wehner, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and speechwriter for three Republican presidents, called the prospect of many Republican lawmakers voting against certification a “worrying sign.”
“It’s an indication that this is a reality secession caucus,” Wehner told The Guardian.
“It’s illiberal, undemocratic, pernicious and widespread in the Republican Party. This is not just a closing act for the Trump era, but an opening act for the post-Trump era. This signals to the grassroots that after Trump leaves these people still see themselves as Trump’s henchmen and part of the Trump cult.
Democratic consultants agreed.
“It’s still the Trump party,” strategist Hank Sheinkopf said. “They may see it as an act of survival and may not even believe in the reality of what they are doing. What they believe in is to be reelected in [midterm elections in] 2022. If we had a president who was ready to go quietly, it wouldn’t be a discussion.
The looming spectacle comes despite the failure of Trump’s legal team to win one of at least 40 lawsuits involving allegations of electoral fraud in November, which election officials have called the safest in American history.
Trump ally and Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley announced on Wednesday that he would oppose certification of electoral votes at the joint session on Jan.6.
In an essay published Wednesday in conservative commentary magazine The Blaze, publisher Mark Levin backed Hawley, saying states did not follow their own election laws.
But in a conference call Thursday, Senate Majority Leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell reportedly said his Jan. 6 vote certifying Biden’s victory would be “the most important I have ever presented.”
McConnell told senators not to join in any attempt to delegitimize electoral votes, believing the effort could cause Republicans to lose two contested Senate seats in the second round in Georgia on January 5.
Wehner believes McConnell opposes Hawley’s effort because it forces Republicans to officially declare themselves and potentially threatens his control of the Senate. “If they go on record against what Hawley is doing, it’s going to set the Republican base on fire; if they accept it, it’s so transparently ridiculous that it’s going to hurt some Republicans in more moderate states, ”Wehner said.
In a dazzling open letter Wednesday, Republican Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse also opposed Hawley, warning that “all the smart arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world will not change the fact that this Jan. 6 effort is designed to deprive millions of Americans just because they voted for someone from another party ”.
“We have a group of ambitious politicians who believe there is a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without causing real long-term damage,” Sasse wrote. “But they’re wrong … adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-reliance.”
According to Jim Sleeper, outgoing political science professor at Yale University, the House Republicans’ rebellious plan aspires to help the kind of McConnell-led obstructionism he practiced against the Obama administration.
“Beyond January 20, we are looking at a Republican Party preparing to ensure – assuming Democrats don’t take control of the Senate – that McConnell will be able to repeat his act of thwarting almost anything the Democrats might hope to do so. “
Any effort to block certification goes hand in hand with suppressing the vote, believes Sleeper, who comes from organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
He said it was part of a larger operation to curtail the mechanisms that an open democratic process makes possible.
“It’s part of a creeping coup that we’ve seen Trump follow in his own way,” he said.
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