Republicans had to choose between (a) looking hypocritical and stupid or (b) incurring the Wrath of Trump, and they went for option (a), which is no problem because hypocrisy is their brand.
On January 6 they’ll just pretend we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
Re: the SCOTUS rejection of Republican bid to overturn the Pennsylvania vote – this bit was in the CNN blog but not in the main article as yet:
“Although we don’t know whether the vote was actually unanimous or why the court refused Rep. Kelly’s emergency request, the fact that the justices issued a one-sentence order with no separate opinions is a powerful sign that the court intends to stay out of election-related disputes, and that it’s going to leave things to the electoral process going forward,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and University of Texas law school professor. “It’s hard to imagine a more quietly resounding rejection of these challenges from this court.”
This was also the first time that Amy Coney Barrett voted on an election issue.
It doesn’t look like any Senate Republicans are interested in playing the objection game. Now that could change, but as of now, that probably won’t happen.
Again, I suspect once the Republicans know that Trump can no longer influence their chances of holding onto the Senate, they won’t be hemming and hawing about who won the election. Right now, they’re keeping their heads down and hoping he doesn’t get too pissed and actively throw the election in GA to the Dems.
Also from CNN:
The justices acted quickly, just after the final brief in the court was filed Tuesday afternoon, suggesting that they wanted to send a decisive message to challengers of the election results.
They were polite enough to wait until the last brief was filed, but clearly never intended to take the case (and wanted everyone to know that).
Of course there is. All they have to do is publicly announce that it’s now clear that the election’s over, and publicly congratulate or at least accept Biden and Harris.
They may lose their next primaries for doing that, sure. But they’re sworn to uphold the Constitution, not sworn to get themselves re-elected. If way too many of them have lost track of that, in the process losing their spines and their morals, that’s massively unfortunate for them and for the country. But no, they’re not just plain stuck with it having no other choice.
We shall see. Personally, I would be very surprised if a Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton did not object to the vote counts from those states. All three have ambitions of running for President as MAGA-heads in 2024, and failing to object would be seen as a betrayal by Trump supporters – particularly after Trump publicly and loudly calls on Republican Senators (and maybe even those three by name) to object to the Biden electors from those states.
That would be “influencing their chances of holding onto the Senate”
But Trump wants to run in 2024. If they were smart, they’d be doing everything they can to break Trump’s power now, because the longer they wait to turn against him, the harder it will be.
They don’t have a lot of choice. They each want to run under the MAGA mantle in 2024. But these voters are only loyal to Trump, so Cruz, Hawley, et. al. have to be perceived by those voters as doing everything humanely possible to keep him in the White House. Then they hope that Trump dies or gets bored over the next four years and they’re in a position to become the standard bearer for the movement.
“Fake Supreme Court! They are part of the Deep State Conspiracy!”
When things like this happen (the SCOTUS ruling on the PA vote), I always like to check out how Fox News is handling it. Last I looked they were handling it like this:
The current lead story at the time I looked was the horror that Joe Biden might enforce some sort of mask mandate!!! Which of course violates something or other in the Constitution. Because Freedom.
Biden’s Black nominee for Secretary of Defense, who is Black, is a blatant case of influence-peddling since this Black man is on the board of Raytheon.
The Supreme Court story was picked up quite late because Fox somehow never heard about it. But they finally acknowledged it, the main story having the headline that “Supreme Court rejects Pennsylvania case without hearing it”. Can you imagine? They rejected it without even bothering to hear it!
I’m quite curious how big the crowd at that inauguration will be. Maybe they won’t need to add Sharpie people. Maybe there will be big empty gaps on Conservative media.
I wonder how all of these legal cases are worded. Note to self, do not start next legal case with the phrase “In a world… where mainstream media has fallen prey to the evils of indoctrination and propaganda…”
Even as a loser Trump is going to carry a lot of weight for the GOP. As an outsider he will have even more freedom to swing his bat at spineless GOP congress-critters (a la The Godfather) for not indicating sufficient loyalty to him - using his fans as a weapon. I think the GOP know this and are behaving accordingly.
The best solution for the Republican party is for Donald Trump to die in the next year or so. They could continue to praise him without worrying about him running again. If he lives until 2024, he is a major problem. He’ll either run or be a huge hassle to deal with.
Honestly, they would be better off it Moscow Mitch and Trump die and they can maybe move forward a bit.
*not wishing death to them, just pointing out that it would help their party
It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo ordered (finger wag, head bop, hand on hip)
The Supreme Court is where the actual unprojected deep state is.
Yep, exactly as I thought they would handle it. Just Certatori denied .
Every election lawsuit should include this awesome statement.
So AFAIK Wisconsin (and only Wisconsin) did in fact miss the Safe Harbor deadline; is that correct?