Trump’s “assault on Michigan” fails, Republicans themselves resist pressure

New York – Donald Trump’s “Michigan heist” failed. Two local Republican lawmakers have said no to the president’s extreme attempt to bend the rules and overturn the verdict at the polls in that industrial Midwest state won by Joe Biden. The two Republicans, summoned to the White House, responded firmly: according to them there is no reason to reverse the electoral result. It’s a setback for the president, who is running out of recent attempts not to acknowledge the Democrat’s victory. “Incredible irresponsibility. Bad signal to the whole world, about the functioning of democracy.” The “patience” that Joe Biden advised his constituents until a few days ago gives way to outrage. The latest letter in which Trump tries to overturn the verdict at the polls is defined by historians as an unprecedented gesture. Some constitutionalists consider it as close to a coup as the American tradition of respecting the will of the voters. Trump convened Republican representatives elected to the Michigan Legislature in the White House on Friday night, with one goal: to get them to designate “large voters” who would vote for him as president. The problem is that the citizens of Michigan have chosen Biden.

Trump’s plan is linked to a peculiarity of the American electoral system: essentially, the election of the president is carried out by universal suffrage, while formally it is a kind of indirect vote. There are two steps: first, each State must certify the verdict of the ballot box; then it is the state legislature that appoints the constituency members who divert the votes of citizens in Washington and help appoint the new executive director. In theory, therefore, local legislatures can also ignore the will of actual voters and appoint “large voters” of opposite political character. It would be such a violation of the popular will that it would justify comparisons with a coup. Trump expected this heist, because several key states that voted for Biden have local parliaments with Republican majorities: in addition to Michigan, this is the case of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia.

Trump’s is a race against time because his plan is impossible in those states that have already officially certified the verdict at the polls. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania are very close to taking that irreversible step that Georgia took last night. Trump’s pressure on his party’s local elected officials has been formidable, making even more significant the fact that the two Michigan elected officials did not bow. The calendar is tightening now: by December 8 the states must have certified the results, so that on December 14 the count will take place at the national level. For individual state parliaments to overturn the will of the electorate, they must have solid justifications: massive fraud, court disputes that prevent them from reaching the certainty of the outcome. But Trump’s legal team continues to lose lawsuits filed for alleged court fraud. He managed to recount the contested ballots, but none of them so far have reversed the result. The suspicion in some cases is that he wanted to buy time to get closer to the date of December 8 without the States having been able to certify the final result of the vote, thus opening up the scenario of “snatch” in local legislation.

Trump’s machinations also draw condemnation from his party. As always, the leader of the dissidents is Mitt Romney, a former White House candidate in 2012 against Barack Obama. Utah Senator Romney Republican had very harsh words against his president: “Having failed in all attempts to prove fraud, the president is now putting pressure on local elected officials to subvert the will of the people and revoke the vote. It is hard to imagine a vote. more undemocratic behavior on the part of an incumbent president. ” The strong reaction from the two Michigan Republicans seems to indicate that Romney is no longer an isolated voice in the Grand Old Party and solidarity with the outgoing president is weakening.