WASHINGTON: America’s founding fathers designed the vice president’s office to be so ineffective that its first occupants often left office. Thomas Jefferson, the second vice president, called it “the most insignificant position ever created by the invention of man,” before fleeing to his Monticello estate to pursue other interests.
When a butler asked Theodore Roosevelt where to keep a White House chandelier that annoyed the president with its jingle, he replied, “Take it to the vice president, he needs something to keep him awake.”
But in an absurd drama worthy of Beckett and Ionesco, a cohort of Republican lawmakers tries to subvert the results of the US elections that favored Democrat Joe Biden by arguing that Vice President Mike pence you can ignore the voter certification of “disputed” states and choose Triumph loyal voters to give the incumbent a second term.
The dirty little secret hidden in this exercise: Loyalists represent constituencies irritated by the loss of white primacy to a coalition of blacks, minorities, liberals and feminists, among others, who put the Biden-Harris team in office.
The effort to obtain legal cover for a vice-presidential coup to give Trump a second term has been ridiculed in legal circles and thrown out of court, including rejection by an appeals court on Saturday. By that logic, legal experts and political experts point out that Vice President Joe Biden could have chosen to install President Hillary Clinton instead of Donald trump on January 6, 2017.
Trump himself alleged irregularities in an election in which he lost the popular vote. And on January 6, 2001, Vice President Al Gore could have been proclaimed the winner of the 2000 elections that George Bush controversially won with the intervention of the Supreme Court.
There is another catch. Some 150 lawmakers loyal to Trump, including 12 Republican senators dubbed the “dirty dozen” by the tabloid press, follow the line that there was fraud in the presidential election, but their own election on the same day was not tainted. Adding to the confusion, many Republican lawmakers, including the party’s Senate leaders, had recognized Biden as the rightful winner.
All of this will come into play on January 6, when the vice president presides over a joint session of Congress recognize the certification of votes from state polling stations in what has long been a ceremonial process. That process is now turning into a divisive political spectacle that some experts say could have profound consequences for the Republican Party and the United States itself.
Caught in this maelstrom is current Vice President Mike Pence, who calls himself “Christian, Conservative, and Republican, in that order.”
As the numbers stack against a Trump loyalist coup, Pence indicated Saturday that he will support a bid condemned by a dozen Republican senators to overturn the election of Joe Biden because he “shares the concerns of millions of Americans. on electoral fraud and irregularities “. Like dozens of Republicans looking to future political prospects, Pence is also torn between loyalty to Trump and loyalty to the party, and the facts and figures that will force him to declare Biden the next president.
The political atmosphere is so tense even within the Republican Party that a pro-Trump lawyer, Lin Wood, shook the establishment by suggesting on Friday that Pence could “face firing squad” for “treason” if he disagrees with those loyal to Trump. attempt to subvert the election.
On the other hand, Texas lawmaker Louie Gohmert, whose bizarre lawsuit that basically argued that the vice president could elect the president was criticized by the courts, suggested that the ruling constituted incitement to violence.
“The bottom line is that the court is saying, ‘We are not going to touch this, you have no choice. Essentially, the ruling would be’ you have to go out on the streets and be as violent as Antifa, BLM, ‘” Gohmert told a channel. Right-wing rife with conspiracy theories and backed by Trump.
Trump had called a demonstration on January 6 in Washington DC, a black majority city ruled by Democrats. Local officials are concerned that far-right white supremacist groups like “Proud Boys” will return to the district and “cause fights, cause damage, damage property and then act in a very threatening manner” as they did during a December Rally. .
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