NEW YORK (AP) – The Republican Party is experiencing a defining moment.
The almost 167-year-old party is divided over Congress’s typically mundane certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory at the Electoral College. The lawsuit, which will take place on Wednesday at the Capitol, is opening a schism between those who wish to honor democratic norms and those who stay in line with President Donald Trump in the hope of avoiding his anger and inheriting his supporters.
The final result leaves no doubt: the results will end up being certified by Biden, who will take office as the country’s 46th president two weeks later. But what comes next for the Republican Party is anything but clear.
It is a party involved in a civil war, a division caused by degrees of loyalty to Trump. At stake: whether the party will maintain its allegiance to Trump even after he leaves office and the Republican Party turns its eyes to the reconquest of the White House in 2024.
“This is the time for Republicans to choose between deciding to free themselves from this manic dominance that Trump has exercised over them or to seal themselves within the tomb he has built for them,” said Michael Steele, former head of the Republican Party. “The first shot of the 2024 cannon will be fired. And will they turn the cannon on themselves or move forward without the handcuffs of Trumpism around their ankles? “
Party factions have emerged in great relief in recent days. More than 100 members of the House of Representatives, long under Trump’s rule, said they would object on Wednesday to Biden’s victory.
And now more than a dozen senators have done the same, defying the explicit wishes of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. Senators Josh Hawley, from Missouri, and Ted Cruz, from Texas, two presidential candidates in 2024, are at the forefront of the movement, seeking favors from a president who remains extremely popular in his own party.
But more than a dozen Senate Republicans have backed down. While almost everyone expressed their refusal to praise the president, they made it clear that they would not agree with his attempts to overthrow the election and remain in power.
“From what I read the Constitution, there is no constitutionally viable way for Congress to overturn an election in which states certified and sent their voters,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, another potential presidential candidate, in a statement .
Trump’s control over his adopted party was almost absolute in his time in office. He defied the Republican Party orthodoxy, broke the presidential rules and publicly attacked Republicans who dared to upset him.
But with few outliers, his party remained behind him, despite his impeachment and clumsy management of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 350,000 Americans. Now, a range of Republicans agree with their unfounded belief that the election was rigged, with even some of those elected in November claiming the vote was rigged.
There was no widespread fraud in the election, which a number of election officials across the country, as well as Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, confirmed.
Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, ensured the integrity of elections in their states. Almost all legal challenges to Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two filed by the Supreme Court, where three Trump-appointed judges preside.
Still, clear clues are emerging within the GOP, as Congressional certification emerges as an inflection point.
While legalists, including Cruz and Hawley, are on Trump’s side, more moderate Republicans like Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah reject the attempt to oppose certification. And conservatives like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas continue to rant in support of the president, but say they will not challenge the constitution.
The fracture, some Republicans fear, could hurt the party’s chances in the next election.
“It’s healthy when a party disagrees about what we think is best for our voters or how to win an election. But we are dividing into two fields that have nothing to do with politics, ”said Mike DuHaime, senior adviser in the 2016 presidential campaign for former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. “The two camps are divided as to whether we serve a person’s whims. It’s the ‘Trump Affection Party’ ”.
The unusual challenge for the presidential election, on a scale never seen since the aftermath of the Civil War, has obscured the opening of the new Congress and is about to consume its first days.
Vice President Mike Pence will be closely watched while chairing the session. Despite serving the president loyally, he is under increasing pressure from Trump and others to change the outcome. But Pence has a ceremonial role that does not give him the power to affect the outcome.
With growing desperation, Trump declared at a campaign rally in Georgia on Monday that he would “fight like hell” to hold the presidency and called on Republican lawmakers to reverse his electoral defeat. But he also issued a warning.
Trump promised that in 2022 he would support primary challenges to the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state, who refused to support his efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results. He also pledged to support an effort to oust Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who refused to agree with the Electoral College’s objections, and told advisers he may target others who challenge him on Wednesday.
Few Republicans expect Trump to quietly return to private life after leaving the White House. The president discussed the possibility of running again in 2024 and, even if he opted against a campaign, he signaled that he wants to play the king maker and shape Republican politics in the years to come.
If you do, the Republican Party can continue to shape itself.
“I believe he will have as much control over the party as he wants,” said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist who advised Cruz’s 2016 campaign. “He still has the heart and support of his base. If he wants to remain a player for himself or for those who convey his message, he will certainly be powerful and the party will have to react ”.
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