“The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic.”
(Mitt Romney)
The unprecedented political show by Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election has raised eyebrows of the political commentators and the democratic institutions. The Republican threat to democracy is evident from the way Trump knocked on the doors of the courts after losing the election.
It decries the unprecedented and sorrowful state of affairs, the likes of which has never been seen in the United States.
From filling unnecessary lawsuits to pursuing the Republicans to change the electoral college members, every move of Donald Trump depicted a misery that shattered the democratic practices of the United States.
His latest bid to steal the vote in Georgia in his leaked audio call magnifies his ambitions that he will go to any limit to steal the American mandate.
Trump’s attempts to involve the military in politics also suggest that the Republican threat to democracy is real and can push the country into chaos.
Even the Texas lawsuits’ failure did not stop him from following his weird ambitions, and he also criticized the judges.
The extreme behavior showed by the Republican supporters also evinces that the threat posed to democracy by the Republicans is not a thing to ignore.
Despite being hit by the worst financial and healthcare crisis in history, the Republican threat to democracy continued to prevail due to the untiring efforts of Donald Trump.
The silence of the Republican leaders is a clear indication that, if it remains unattended, this threat will only increase in time to come.
Let’s explore how the Republican threat to democracy is endangering the Constitution of the United States.
The Criminal Silence of Republican leaders: Republicans Appreciating Trump for Promoting Stupidity
Donald Trump has created a significant constitutional crisis for the first time since the Civil War. The United States started its prosperity with the hard work of decades, but only four years of Donald Trump ruined it all.
Amid all this, GOP leaders stood behind Donald Trump, and their silence encouraged him to do unmeasured damage. The autocratic style of government by Donald Trump is in the negation of the very basics of democracy.
Republican leaders cannot say anything to Donald Trump, as anyone standing against him faces the brunt of his wrath. This is one of the primary reasons why Donald Trump has destroyed the Republican party as well.
Experts term this silence from the Republican leaders as political survival. President Donald Trump and his party are connected in a cult-like relationship. This relationship makes the Republicans believe that Trump’s survival is their survival; they are locked in some kind of civil war with Democrats, and wars can only be won with aggression.
With the fear of Trump’s base in mind, they are just trying to save their political careers by observing a criminal silence.
The unprecedented support of at least 126 Republican leaders to Trump in the Texas lawsuit also evinces that Republicans are shy to stand against the Trump narrative. Similarly, only a handful of the Republican leaders congratulated Joe Biden on the election victory because of fear of Trump.
President-elect Joe Biden won the election by a wide margin. Despite knowing, Republicans did not gather up the courage to stop Trump from spreading fake news and violating democratic conventions of providing intelligence briefings to the president-elect.
Trump’s campaign launched more than thirty lawsuits in battleground states. Not shockingly, all of them were rejected. However, no prominent Republican openly accused Donald Trump of propagating the false narrative of voter fraud.
Although some of them recognized President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Washington’s real Republican leadership was just a quiet spectator.
This was a criminal silence, and the average American pays the price. The essence of democracy requires that if the incumbent president does something against democracy, the party leaders must resist.
The silence of the Republican leaders evinces that the Republican threat to democracy is getting worse over time.
Mitt Romney, a lifelong Republican, came forward to expose his party, claiming President Donald Trump’s efforts to reject the Electoral College vote were a threat to American democracy. He also said that Congress and House Republicans had been involved in a “ploy” of rejecting the Electoral College vote.
Romney voiced these concerns in a statement that was released by a bipartisan group of ten Senators.
However, despite Romney’s talking sense, the overall silence of Republicans is a real threat to democracy.
Republican Threat to Democracy: A Threat to the US Constitution
The present situation of the political institution is persisting evidence of the broken state of American democracy. The Republican Party wants to shatter the democracy that will result in the abrogation of the Constitution.
Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard University, believes that “we are facing an existential crisis in part because the Republican Party has put all of their appeals into a shrinking sector of the electorate.” She also suggested that the GOP is very much related to authoritarianism and conservative parties around the world.
American democracy functions on a two-party system, which requires both parties to position themselves close to the center of the ideological spectrum. In the last four years, under the leadership of Donald Trump, the GOP has moved to the far-right corner, disrupting the balance of democracy. This is a real Republican threat to democracy, as they have established a conservative ideology to spread it among their supporters.
The division and hate also exist in the voters, and this is pushing the Republican leaders to be more extreme to satisfy their vote banks.
The Trump base established by the president has moved to the extreme and has also urged the political parties to take an extreme position to survive in the political field.
All of this is a Republican threat to democracy, and it will only increase with time.
More astonishing is the fact that even Republican Senators such as Mitch McConnell are supporting Trump blindly. The Senate is the most sacred house of the United States regarding the powers enacted in them.
If the threat is posed to democracy by such a sacred house, the Constitution will cease to function in the country. This Republican threat to democracy suggests that the United States needs sane leadership to reestablish the sanctity of the Constitution.
Republican Threat to Democracy: Trump’s Attempt to Steal Georgia Votes:
Trump, in his post-election days, accused Democrats of election and voter fraud. However, all of his allegations were unsubstantiated and based on mere rhetoric. He failed to provide even a bit of evidence supporting his claims. The recently leaked call of Donald Trump to the Georgia Secretary of State is a clear indication that not Democrats but Republicans want to perpetrate election fraud.
In the phone call, Trump asked the Secretary to “find 11,780 votes” in Georgia to overturn the presidential election result. It is pertinent to mention here that Democrats won the state by 11,779 votes, so Trump asked the Secretary to find one more vote to overturn the election.
This scam by Donald Trump explains the Republican threat to democracy to such extent as a vote is the primary pillar of any Democracy.
Conclusion
Trump observed a lot of undemocratic practices during his four years of tenure as president. His policy approaches in his last days are destroying America to its core. As president, he was immune to criminal investigations.
Still, all of his undemocratic practices swallowed the already-existing charges against him, which can land him in jail once he leaves the office. It is time for the Republican leaders to think beyond Trump, as promoting Trump’s narrative will do more bad than good to them in the long run.
It is not only in the interest of the Republicans but the whole American society in general. While Trump is motivating Republican Congressmen to initiate another controversy on January 6 in Congress, it seems that Trump is not taking a day off to promote undemocratic practices in the country.
Video Summary:
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.