The superloyalists Maverick to Donald Trump are due to make an audacious spectacle in Washington next week, voting against the formal counting of electoral college votes that certify Joe Biden’s victory.
While the outlier tactic is not enough to prevent Biden from becoming the 46th president, it will serve to disorganize Congress, strengthen Trump and set an acid tone for political cooperation with the new Democratic government.
Two Republican members of the House of Representatives reportedly told CNN, without disclosing their names, that they expect around 140 Republican Party colleagues to vote against a procedural certification vote at a joint Congressional session on January 6. The strategy speaks to the continuing stranglehold the outgoing president has on a significant party faction, political observers said on Friday.
Peter Wehner, vice president of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, a conservative thinktank and speechwriter for three Republican presidents, called the prospect of many Republican lawmakers voting against certification “a disturbing signal”.
“It is an indication that this is a caucus of separation from reality,” Wehner told the Guardian.
“It is illiberal, anti-democratic, pernicious and widespread in the Republican party. It is not just a closing act for the Trump era, but an opening act for the post-Trump era. It is a sign of virtue to the base that, after Trump’s departure, these people still consider themselves Trump’s acolytes and part of the Trump cult. ”
Democratic consultants agreed.
“This is still Trump’s party,” said strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “They may see it as an act of survival, and they may not even believe in the reality of what they are doing. What they believe in is being re-elected in [midterm elections in] 2022. If we had a president prepared to leave in silence, there would be no discussion ”.
The impending spectacle comes despite the failure of Trump’s legal team to win any of at least 40 lawsuits involving allegations of electoral fraud in November, an election that officials consider the safest in American history.
On Wednesday, Trump’s ally and Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley announced that they would oppose certifying electoral votes during the joint session on January 6.
In an essay published on Wednesday in conservative commentary The Blaze, editor Mark Levin supported Hawley, claiming that states have failed to comply with their own electoral laws.
But in a conference call on Thursday, Senate and Kentucky Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell said his January 6 vote, certifying Biden’s victory, will be “the most important ever cast”.
McConnell told senators not to join any attempt to delegitimize electoral votes, believing that the effort could cause Republicans to lose two seats in the Senate that are being contested in the second round in Georgia on January 5.
Wehner believes McConnell is opposed to Hawley’s effort because it forces Republicans to speak out and potentially threatens their control of the Senate. “If they openly state what Hawley is doing, it will inflame the Republican base; if they agree with that, it’s so transparently ridiculous that it’s going to hurt some Republicans in more moderate states, ”said Wehner.
In an open letter on Wednesday, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska also opposed Hawley, warning that “all the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world will not change the fact that this January 6 effort was designed to deprive millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone from another party. ”
“We have a lot of ambitious politicians who think there is a quick way to get in touch with the president’s populist base without doing any real long-term damage,” wrote Sasse. “But they are wrong … adults do not point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”
According to Jim Sleeper, a retired professor of political science at Yale University, the House Republicans’ rebellious plan aims to help the kind of obstructionism led by McConnell that he practiced against the Obama administration.
“After January 20, we are looking at a Republican party that is preparing to guarantee – assuming that Democrats do not gain control of the Senate – that McConnell will be able to repeat its act of preventing almost everything that Democrats could hope to do. “
Any effort to block certification goes hand in hand with suppressing the vote, believes Sleeper, who comes from organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
He said it is part of a larger operation to restrict the mechanisms that an open and democratic process makes possible.
“It is part of a frightening coup d’état that we saw Trump going on his own crazy path,” he said.