Republicans Keep Dancing with Autocracy

With almost every passing day I cringe at what the Republican Party has become.  Between the constant misogyny of the sexual predator in chief in the White House, relentless attacks on the truth and the utterly foul Mitch McConnell, it's as if we are witnessing a reprise of some of the worse aspects of rise of the Nazis in Germany.  Most disturbing is that most Republicans continue to ignore the assaults on the rule of law and relentless lying.  Holding on to political power now means more than anything else, including office holders' pledge to uphold and defend the United States Constitution.  Some it would seem would sell their elderly mothers for pocket change in exchange for another term in office.  The recounts following the midterm elections have made Republican hideousness even worse and with the exception of George Conway's new group Republicans seem to be all in in supporting a would be autocrat (for Fox News viewers, that means a dictator).  A column in the Washington Post looks at the disturbing phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

When a national leader urges that votes be ignored, or that an election result he doesn’t like might best be set aside, we label him an autocrat or an authoritarian.

When it’s President Trump, we shrug. Worse, many in his party go right along with his baseless charges of fraud.

We are in for a difficult two years. Surviving them will require that Republican senators take seriously the pledge they made in their oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” What we have seen so far is not encouraging.

Florida brings out the worst in Republicans. They find it hard to break bad habits developed during the 2000 presidential election, during which they were willing to use any means necessary (including a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision rooted far more in partisanship than law) to prevent Democrat Al Gore from getting a recount. The contest was ultimately settled by 537 votes. . The GOP stopped the recounts, and George W. Bush became president.

To its credit, Florida now requires automatic recounts when races are decided by narrow margins. And this year, Republicans shouldn’t have much to worry about. In the U.S. Senate contest, as of Wednesday morning, Republican Gov. Rick Scott enjoyed a 12,562-vote lead over Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. In the governor’s race, Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democrat Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes. Unless something is badly amiss — in which case a recount is imperative — such margins would typically survive close scrutiny. But Trump would have none of it.

For starters, as The Post’s Fact Checker noted, overseas and military ballots postmarked by Election Day are accepted as long as 10 days after the voting. So Trump, the day after Veterans Day, was suggesting that many of the ballots sent in by our service members not be counted at all.

Then there was Trump’s tweet last Friday suggesting that “a new Election” might be required in Arizona as Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema passed Republican Rep. Martha McSally in the vote count of their U.S. Senate race. With her golden retriever Boomer at her side, McSally ignored Trump and graciously conceded to Sinema in a video on Monday. McSally is clearly thinking beyond the Trumpian present.

All this is about more than Trump’s obvious meltdown since an election that was bad for him and his party — and gets worse as more votes are tallied. It is about whether Republicans are willing to contain and, when necessary, oppose a man who repeatedly demonstrates hostility to the rules, norms and constraints of constitutional democracy.

It was, thus, good news this week when 14 conservative and libertarian lawyers announced the formation of a new organization called Checks and Balances. Its ranks include George T. Conway III , who happens to be the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, and former homeland security secretary and Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge.

Their organizing statement declared the group’s dedication to “the rule of law, the power of truth, the independence of the criminal justice system, the imperative of individual rights, and the necessity of civil discourse.”

Tellingly, they insisted that their commitment to these principles applied “regardless of the party or persons in power” and reflected their faith in “free speech, a free press, separation of powers and limited government.”

Up to now, conservatives opposed to Trump have had little impact on their party. Too many, especially among elected officials, have pulled their punches in the crunch and fallen silent under pressure.

The test will be whether four or five GOP senators prove willing to break with Trump’s apologists in their party’s leadership when it matters — and when it’s hard. Defending the Florida recount as legitimate and necessary would be a good start. So would supporting a bill protecting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and insisting that his findings be made public. Lovely words about the truth and the rule of law are powerless against a [would be tyrant] president who respects neither.