The defiance, disbelief, and remedy for the 2020 election results voiced across the nation are stunning. From baseless allegations of fraud to hoarse cries for martial law, voices of folks from the Old Dominion match those in other corners. In context and juxtaposing a few with one another, the similarities resemble a chorus.
There are some 195 Republican members of the US House of Representatives, and 126 (65%) of them signed onto an amicus brief spearheaded by the Attorney General of Texas to challenge the 2020 voting results in four states. The attorneys general of 18 states, 36% of the total, joined Texas.
In Virginia, three of its 11 House members (27%), Republicans, were among the signers to the Texas challenge. One of the four House Republicans, Denver Riggleman, who did not win reelection, did not enlist onto the amicus brief with the 126 House Republicans who agreed to the kamikaze lawsuit that SCOTUS summarily dismissed.
About 4.4 million Virginians voted in the 2020 presidential election–2.4 million for the Democrat and 2 million for the Republican. In effect, the three Virginia Republicans voted to nullify the votes of over 4 million, including those votes that elected the four GOP House members. Some have argued that the honorable thing is for the four to resign from Congress as testament to their protest. Riggleman, ousted by the VA GOP, commented:
A lot of people saw that as a threat to their very existence being in Congress. They’re getting pressure from multiple angles. They can come out and say they’re defending the president, knowing that it’s a fool’s errand but that it allows them to stay in good graces with a certain segment of the voting population.
To emphasize Riggleman’s disloyalty, the Appomattox County Republican Committee censured him for “betraying the very morals, principals (sic), and values of the Republican party” and “for his open consideration to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden instead of President Donald Trump….”
But Rep. Riggleman did not have the last word from the VA-05 congressional district. His successor, “biblical conservative” Bob Good, spoke at the November 12 rally in DC cheered by the Proud Boys. Good’s two cents preached that the COVID-19 virus was “phony” and encouraged the MAGAnuts:
This looks like a group of people that get that this is a phony pandemic. It’s a serious virus, but it’s a virus. It’s not a pandemic … You get it. You stand up against tyranny.
Good’s Virginia constituents may search in vain for any campaign commitments he made concerning his congressional efforts in stemming the “not a pandemic” that has claimed 285,000 cases in the Commonwealth with 4,414 fatalities. One may only guess that the numbers are not of sufficient biblical proportions to satisfy being characterized as a pandemic since the state records indicate only 300 in his congressional district who perished due to the phony pandemic..
Days later, state Sen. Amanda Chase, a GOP candidate in the gubernatorial race, topped the commentary field by invoking a plea for P45 “to declare martial law.” No less a national Trump celebrity Michael Flynn, repeated Chase’s call to arms.
The theme of the ramshackle DC rally was to “protest the steal.” One participant, a demonstrator who drove from Gloucester, Virginia, to show her support for Trump, said the legal defeats hadn’t shaken her belief that he won the election.
“I believe the courts were on the take, too,” she said. The Supreme Court, where three of the nine justices were appointed by Trump, “was just afraid of a political backlash,” she said. Yes, it is difficult to imagine the disloyalty of justices whose lifetime jobs were gifts from P45.
The event was Trump star-studded, with Michael Flynn, Sebastian Gorka, Mike “My Pillow” Lindell, and Alex Jones…. The White House incumbent is likely to long for the trappings that the office of POTUS conferred–especially the legal protections.
Rolling Stone reported that the full diet of red meat served at the rally fueled chants from the crowd to “Destroy the GOP!” to express anger with the party for failing to keep Trump in the White House. GOP leadership at the RNC may deflect by citing to the law of unintended consequences.
The event was Trump star-studded, with Michael Flynn, Sebastian Gorka, Mike “My Pillow” Lindell, and Alex Jones. Flynn and Gorka are or have been residents of Virginia. Exhibiting his best military behavior, P45 flew over the crowd in Marine One on his way to the Army-Navy football game at West Point, New York. Flynn, perhaps with a tear in his eye in gratitude for his pardon, exclaimed:
That’s pretty cool. Imagine just being able to jump in a helicopter and just go for a joy ride around Washington.
Yes, indeed, the White House incumbent is likely to long for the trappings that the office of POTUS conferred–especially the legal protections–along with a complete end to any connection with the hoax of COVID-19.
The newly emancipated Flynn sought to motivate the crowd:
Don’t get bent out of shape…. There are still avenues. We’re fighting with faith, and we’re fighting with courage. The courts aren’t going to decide who the next president of the United States is going to be. We the people decide.
As if competing for an Oscar, Alex Jones’ remarks more closely fit a threat:
So I don’t know who’s going to the White House in 38 days, but I sure know this: Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another.
The “globalist” reference is a popular anti-Semitic trope among the chaos promoters on the radical right and cultivated by QAnon. No term too ugly to share.
Since some 71 million fellow Americans voted for the Republican in the 2020 election, it is foolish to dismiss these voices as inconsequential. In light of the fact that the incumbent has not conceded, continues to promote the election as rigged, and the silence of congressional Republicans in accepting those results, the nation faces a problematic and existential fault in its civic culture and democracy.
Since some 71 million fellow Americans voted for the Republican in the 2020 election, it is foolish to dismiss these voices as inconsequential. In light of the fact that the incumbent has not conceded, continues to promote the election as rigged, and the silence of congressional Republicans in accepting those results, the nation faces a problematic and existential fault in its civic culture and democracy.
Coupled with rumors of the incumbent not attending the January 20 inauguration in favor of hosting a political rally elsewhere, it would not surprise too many were Trump to resign within a few weeks. This leaves VP Pence to preside over the certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 6 at a Joint Session of Congress, and stand at the inaugural ceremony–almost but not quite a successful “Apprentice” contestant. A first commandment of the cult is “Thou shalt not have false candidates before me.”
As Yul Brynner portraying Ramses II in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments intoned “So let it be written, so let it be done.”
Categories: CIVILIAN MILITIAS, coronavirus, elections, Issues, Local, National, pandemic, politics, State
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