Republican Support for Insurrection

David Hilfiker

On Wednesday, January 6th, Congress met in joint session in the Capitol Building to certify the results of the Electoral College vote.  Over sixty unsuccessful lawsuits had previously proven beyond doubt that the electoral votes were legitimate and accurate.  By a vote of 306 to 232, Joe Biden was President-Elect of the United States.  There was no constitutional way for Congress to deny that certification.  Vice-President Pence had no power to challenge the results, only to report them to Congress.

Nevertheless, over half (139) of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and eight senators had announced their intention to vote to delay their approval pending further investigation of the results.  

Before the vote could occur, insurrectionists, incited by President Trump, overran the building.  Follow-up reporting has indicated that the attack on the Capitol was more than the exuberance of an excited crowd.  Michael Gerson writes:

In the days since the attack, … our picture of the event itself has evolved. From long-distance camera lenses, it might have looked like a protest that grew out of hand. But many of the insurrectionists came prepared with tactical gear and communications equipment. They roamed the halls with zip ties hunting for Pence and congressional leaders. At a distance, they carried crosses. Close up, they built gallows and chanted death threats. At a distance, they carried “thin blue line” banners. Close up, they savagely beat police officers who resisted them.

One moment captured on video stands out to me for its brutality and symbolism. An insurrectionist pulls a police officer down the steps of the Capitol, where he is stomped and beaten with the pole of a U.S. flag. The crowd chants “USA, USA.”

Congresspeople were hiding under their desks before being whisked away to “undisclosed locations” for their safety.  After convening again, a few of the objecting members of Congress agreed to certify the election.  Nevertheless, the majority of the objectors from the House still voted in defiance of the expressed will of the people of the United States.  To be clear, this was not an illegal action.  It’s also clear, however, that everyone knew the vote would not succeed, for it would have required Democratic votes to pass.  Additionally, the Federal Election Commission had issued a statement that the election was the “most secure in US history.”  So, it was only to appease President Trump and his supporters that over 100 members of Congress, led by Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Josh Hawley, voted to undermine the legitimate results of a presidential election.

In the long run, does it really matter?  Yes, it does.

• The attack on the Capitol is just one result of the lies by Trump and his Republican followers.  When millions of people who don’t trust the government in the first place observe their Congresspeople trying to overwhelm the will of the people, even violent insurrection should be no surprise.  
• Those members of Congress thus joined Trump in convincing well over fifty million Americans that in fact, the election was stolen.  Large numbers of Americans, therefore, will continue to believe that Joe Biden will not the be the legitimate president of the United States.

Most Republicans had already demonstrated their support for reversing the results of the election by supporting Trump’s previous legal attempts to do so.  To my knowledge, none of these defiant Republicans had expressed resistance to Trump’s empty lawsuits, thereby supporting his efforts, some tacitly but others explicitly.  Again, the lawsuits were not illegal, but these Congresspeople supportive of the President knew or should have known that the suits had no chance of success, that in fact Biden had won the election.  Therefore, even tacit support for overturning the results of the Electoral College election indicated that they also disbelieved Biden’s victory.  If the Republican leaders of the country do not consider Biden legitimate, why should citizens?  Trump and his congressional followers, therefore, have deeply damaged our democracy.

While their actions were not, as said above, illegal, these Republicans have forfeited their right to be in office.  

There are only two ways to remove a president Trump from office: Article 25 of the Constitution and impeachment.  Vice-President Pence, who alone has authority to initiate Article 25, refused to do so.  The House has impeached the President.  The unexpected good news is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed his willingness to hold conviction hearings.  There is almost no chance that the Senate will convict before Trump leaves office next Wednesday.  I support impeachment, mostly because the divisiveness in the country will not be healed unless we confront head-on what has happened to our country.  Nevertheless, others have offered good reasons for not taking that route.  (See my posts here and here for the debate for and against the first impeachment.)  But, at the very least, all Republican members of Congress, have the moral responsibility to work to remove those who voted against certification.  They are ethically bound to support Democrats or third-party challengers in the next election.  As I argued earlier in the year, the Republican Party must either disavow them or be dismantled.