Constitutional Oaths

It’s not like I haven’t been paying attention since last I posted to this blog.  It’s just that, once again, most of the events in TrumpLand over the past few weeks have been incredibly predictable.

  • Trump inflaming his base with evidence-free allegations of multi-state election fraud.  Check.
  • Trump & Company filing massive numbers of election lawsuits only to see them denied or tossed out.  Check.
  • Trump obsessing over his loss while his administration continues to bungle the vaccine rollout.  Check.
  • Trump handing out pardons, appointments, and medals like candy to anyone who kisses his ass.  Check.
  • Trump firing or threatening anyone who passes up even one ass-kiss opportunity – even those who have spent years with their lips firmly glued to Trump’s ample derrière.  Check.

I even expected a few far-right nutjobs might merrily indulge Trump’s fantasies and attempt the ultimate subjugation of kissing Trump’s ass from inside his colon.  Sen. Hawley (R-MO) and Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) were always prime candidates to object to today’s Congressional count of the Electoral votes.

Of course, there have been a few things that I didn’t expect.

  • Trump not invoking the National Emergencies Act to wreck havoc on, well, everything.  Unfortunately, he still has plenty of time to do this.
  • Trump casting so much Republican doubt on the election process that he appears to have single-handedly given Democrats control of the Senate by allowing both Georgia seats to flip – seats that would have been imminently winnable by the Republican incumbents in a Trump-less world.
  • Over a quarter of the sitting Republican Senators joining in an effort to completely disregard the will of American voters.

That last one that is, by far, the most worrisome of all.

Trump was always going to be a sore loser and a sore loser with the power of the Presidency was always going to be dangerous.  Serious abuses of power and derelictions of duties were to be expected.  And it will undoubtedly get worse.  The hope has been that we could somehow survive the chaos until January 20.

And yet, today, we have the United States Congress.

At last count, thirteen Republican Senators led by Sen. Cruz (R-TX) – Senators who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States – have disregarded their oath by refusing to accept the Electoral votes duly certified by multiple states solely because they don’t like the results.

To make matters much worse, the Senators’ actions – and Trump’s blessing – have caused a Trump-supporting mob to breach security on Capitol Hill.  Lawmakers are currently being escorted to safety away from the Capitol.  I’m watching this play out on television right now and am appalled by what I’m seeing.

The spurious allegations of fraud have been adjudicated by multiple courts and each state has submitted a single set of certified Electors to Congress in accordance with the Constitution.  Today’s Senate action is intended to be a Constitutional formality.  The job of the Senate is merely to count the states’ votes; it is not their job to second-guess the states’ decisions.  If the Senate was indeed vested with the power to unilaterally decide which states’ votes they want to count, then Presidential elections would be rendered utterly meaningless.

Even though the efforts of the Republican Senators seem doomed to fail given the current makeup of Congress, even a futile attempt by multiple Senators to overturn the election results is well beyond a dangerous precedent.  It is well beyond a difference of political opinion.  It is well beyond a protest vote.  It is well beyond a political stunt to court favor with Trump’s base.

It is sedition.

Federal code defines Seditious Conspiracy as two or more citizens that conspire to overthrow the Government of the United States.  The act is punishable by 20 years in prison.  In 1861, ten Senators were expelled from the Senate for refusing to accept Lincoln’s election.  We know how that turned out.

Short of civil war, I hope we don’t just let this pass without consequences.