Last Updated on December 12, 2020, 12:34 PM | Published: December 10, 2020
President Donald Trump’s state and congressional minions will keep Trumpism alive even at the cost of democracy itself.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter joined with 16 other Republican states as amici for Texas AG Ken Paxton’s attempt to invalidate the election of President-elect Joe Biden.
The fact that nearly 50 members of the Oklahoma Legislature, including House Speaker Charles McCall, and 106 members of Congress have signed separate briefs supporting Paxton’s efforts alongside Hunter shows that democracy in the U.S. is in crisis.
Opinion by George D. Lang
“I regret that the U.S. Supreme Court is the only forum available to resolve the many legitimate concerns regarding state elections,” Hunter said in a statement regarding Paxton’s suit, which seeks to invalidate election results in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.. “That is why I am joining the amicus brief in support of the Texas case, to encourage the highest court in the land to thoughtfully consider and address the matters presented.”
It is highly doubtful that all of the Federalists Trump placed on the Supreme Court will side with a lawsuit in which red state AGs try to tell other states’ secretaries of state how to do their jobs. When pro-”state’s rights” governors and AGs suddenly try to govern other states from afar and request judicial intercession on their behalf, the jokes kind of write themselves.
But none of this is funny, really.
What Paxton’s suit demonstrates is a Republican Party so deeply aggrieved about the now-certified 50-state results of the election that it is willing to burn democracy to the ground.
“You know who voted for you in Michigan, General Paxton? No one. Literally no one,” said Michigan AG Dana Nessel on Wednesday’s All in with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. “So, stay in your lane, and stick to trying to disenfranchise voters in your own state. Don’t come to mine.”
These calls are not just coming from Democratic leaders. Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-South Dakota, is not convinced of Paxton and his compatriots’ chances or intentions.
“I just don’t know why a state like Texas, which never wants anybody telling them what to do, now wants to tell a bunch of other states how to run their elections,” Thune told The Hill on Thursday.
It probably has something to do with Paxton’s legal situation, since he has been under indictment most of his time in the AG’s office for both state and federal securities fraud. This longshot lawsuit might be entirely meritless, but Paxton’s efforts to undo the results of an election that saw no widespread voter fraud will probably net him a pardon as Krampus Trump distributes pardons to his faithful on the Island of Misfit Trolls.
Unless Paxton’s longshot pays off or Trump pulls off a civil war or declares martial law, as pardoned former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn suggested, Trump will skulk out of the White House January 20 while President Joe Biden’s disinfection team sprays down every surface.
We now know that a significant number of Republicans only respect democracy when their side wins.
They are willing to add their names to briefs that support the invalidation of an election and the disenfranchisement of American voters. These are lists of lawmakers and law enforcers on the downhill slide toward sedition, so let us use these briefs as a voting guide against anti-democratic authoritarians.
None of the lawmakers or AGs who took part in Paxton’s scheme should benefit from democracy ever again. They must be voted out and shamed by polite society. They should not be allowed to succeed electorially within a system they do not respect and are unwilling to defend.
After Trump is gone, we will still have these pernicious clowns in positions of power, and after January 20, they will still be a threat to democracy.
Every time one of them runs for reelection or aspires to higher office, the list should come out. Their authoritarian, anti-democratic sentiments are now part of the public record.
Here is the final updated press release from the Oklahoma House of Representatives showing support for AG Mike Hunter’s supporting the Texas lawsuit to overturn four state’s elections. The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit Friday, December 11. (Press +/_ to zoom in or out on each page.)
OK-HoR-support-of-Mike-Hunter-joining-Texas-lawsuit
George Lang has worked as an award-winning professional journalist in Oklahoma City for over 25 years and is the professional opinion columnist for Free Press. His work has been published in a number of local publications covering a wide range of subjects including politics, media, entertainment and others. George lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and son.
