The Republican Party is guilty of sedition and should be disbanded. It has taken me awhile to adopt a position that drastic, but for anyone who thinks that opinion is unwarranted, allow me to state the definition of sedition: “conduct or speech that incites people to rebel against the authority of state or monarch.” That is a classic definition of what the Republican Party is doing in real time. We had a free-and-fair election last month, through which more than 81 million citizens of a democratic republic elected a president. That same candidate also won the Electoral College by a 74-point margin in an election that has been widely declared by legal experts as one of the most secure in American history. Yet, Republican attorneys general in 18 states are questioning the returns in four swing states that President-elect Joe Biden handily won. More than 100 House Republicans have just signed an amicus brief joining those states in challenging the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while 220 Congressional Republicans refuse to admit that Biden won the 2020 presidential election. In doing so, these lawmakers are inciting the 74 million deluded voters who chose to keep in office the worst president in American history.
At this writing, overall trust among Republican voters in the U.S. election system has plummeted from 66 percent before Nov. 3 to just 36 percent today. Just one in four say they trust the results of the 2020 presidential election. Less than three in 10 say they trust the results in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan, all states Joe Biden won. Nearly 45 percent of Republicans actually believe the election will be overturned, despite the glaring fact that their desire is fantasy. Donald Trump’s legal team has lost 52 separate cases across the nation seeking to overturn those results, and they have just been denied by the U. S. Supreme Court. And just who do these Republican “fighters for liberty” want reinstated in the White House? A man who has called for his political opponents to be arrested and imprisoned, denounced the news media as “enemies of the people,” for consistently calling him out on his lies and reporting the truth, impugned the integrity of the judges who have ruled against him, demanded loyalty not to the Constitution or the rule of law but strictly to himself, replaced five inspector generals investigating wrong doing in his administration, withheld his tax returns, pardoned allies convicted of felonies, and normalized lying and deception. Did I forget to mention ignoring, mismanaging and lying to the American public about a deadly disease that has caused nearly 300,000 deaths and millions of infections? Have I forgotten inflaming race relations, or his engagement with a foreign power to win the 2016 presidential election? Congress investigated Donald Trump for attempting to cover up his engagement with Russia in that election, political indiscretions the Mueller Report clearly revealed. Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Flynn, lied to the FBI about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and admitted to this in court.
Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, lied to the FBI about his ties to Russia. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, lied to the FBI about his connections to a man with ties to Russian intelligence, and advisor George Papadopoulos lied to the FBI about his interactions with another operative linked to Russia. Roger Stone, another veteran Trump advisor, lied to Congress about the Trump campaign’s efforts to coordinate with WikiLeaks. Want more? How about obstruction of justice to stop the Russia investigation. Trump pressured then-FBI Director James Comey to stop that investigation, then fired him when he refused. He tried to coerce then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end his recusal and supervise the Russia investigation as a personal favor. He contemplated firing special counsel Robert Mueller, and told the White House Counsel to falsify reports to obstruct the Mueller investigation. Had enough? Too bad! Donald Trump was impeached for attempting to extort another foreign power to help him win the 2020 election. He commuted Roger Stone’s sentence before he even served one day in prison, and pardoned Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to his crimes twice. Trump has directed law enforcement to attack peaceful protestors for a photo op, utilized federal law enforcement to intimidate cities not run by Republican mayors, and placed so many former lobbyists in cabinet positions that the term “Conflict of Interest” should be a White House office label. In his four years in office, Donald Trump has proven to be nothing more than a lying, corrupt, megalomaniacal dictator with about as much morality and character as a common sewer rat. But this is the man the Republican Party is fighting to reinstall in the White House. This is who they want to lead a free nation for another four years. And that sorry collection of sycophants is flagrantly flying in the face of democracy to do it. These are not the actions of a political party that respects the laws and norms of a democratic nation. If the legislators and members of the Republican Party cannot accept the fact that their candidate lost a free-and-fair election, or uphold a cherished national tradition and concede gracefully, then it is time for that party to end. When Donald Trump was sworn in as president four years ago, all those who didn’t support him were continually subjected to a comment I’ll now use in support of our 46th president, Joe Biden:
HE WON! GET OVER IT!