To the background of the most important rerun Senate election witnessed in a life time, a power and policy struggle is raging within the Republican Party resulting in the GOP candidates, who were clear favorites, struggling to retain their seats. It is fair comment to put a large share of the blame for the fact that the Republican majority, which just three months ago was a hundred thousand votes is now under threat, fairly and squarely on Donald J. Trump and his allies. At stake is the control of the Senate which under McConnell will make Biden’s task immeasurably more difficult than if Chuck Schumer became the leader. If Democrats win they will have much to thank Trump for. A subtext to the conflict is the threat to democracy that Trumpism has spawned.
In a shambolic few weeks America has witnessed a petulant sulking President lash out in every direction in an effort to remain the de facto leader of the Republican Party as well as President. His opposition, Mitch McConnell, his co partner till the Electoral College announced Biden as President elect, appears to be more than holding his own, in spite of the fact that the majority of the Republican base constitute the Trump cult. Not helping Trump’s unorthodox Presidency is that he has abandoned totally the management of the Covid pandemic which is now the number one cause of death in America. If Orwell would have written that The Leader would be playing golf under these circumstances he would have been laughed out of court.
Trump’s destructive efforts have the intention of testing the loyalty of Republicans, especially in the Legislature and even his obsequious sycophantic Vice President, Mike Pence. The three issues being used as proxies for the fight are; overturning the 2020 Presidential election results thus refusing to acknowledge Biden as President elect; increasing the one time payment to lower income Americans from six hundred dollars to two thousand in the current Covid induced economic recession and an exhortation to Republicans not to override his veto of the bipartisan Defense Appropriations Bill.
TRUMP’S TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR DEMAND FOR DIRECT PAYMENT IN THE COVID RELIEF BILL
For months now the Democrats have been agitating for Covid relief which would also include a one time direct payment based on income. They have been passing Bills in the House which have been totally ignored by the McConnell controlled Senate. Largely as a result of pressure from sitting Senators Loeffler and Perdue who were feeling the heat in the Georgia election McConnell agreed to a vastly scaled down Covid relief bill which included a six hundred dollar direct payment. The Democrats agreed to it because it was better than nothing. Also it ostensibly had the blessing of the President with his Treasury Secretary involved in the negotiations. So both the Senate and the House passed the Bill with overwhelming majorities.
This rare bipartisan event coincided with McConnell publicly accepting the formal electoral college decision that Joseph Biden was the President elect. Trump went ballistic and one of his responses was that he refused to sign the Bill and off he went to play golf in Florida. However even the cult were suffering economically and Trump was under pressure to sign by three of his closest confidants - Minority Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, his closest ally and golf partner Lindsey Graham and most significantly David Perdue one of the Republican senatorial candidates in Georgia. Trump seizing on the possibility that he could be seen as the savior of the Senate indicated a renewed interest in acting like a President and agreed to sign and called the six hundred dollars measly and demanded that it be upped to two thousand dollars per person. He added to his rationale as things went along that the Bill did not contain control of social media nor was there any investigation into the fraudulent election.
Well the House Democrats seized on Trump’s demand for the direct payment to be upped to $2,000 and enacted a Bill to pass the high amount. Trump had made this a test of loyalty and had to be upset when only forty - five of the one hundred and ninety - five House Republicans joined the Democrats to increase the payments.
So off the bill went to the Senate where McConnell stopped it dead in its tracks. He offered a resolution which included all three of Trump’s demands which involved investigative committees on the social media and ways to prevent electoral fraud, knowing full well that such a resolution would never pass. He stated specifically he was not going to be bullied into this by anyone. McConnell was directly challenging Trump and felt comfortable doing so.
OVERRIDE OF TRUMP’S VETO ON NATIONAL DEFENSE APPROPRIATION
Trump once again appealed to the Republican legislators to support his veto over a bipartisan exercise that has been routine for over sixty years. His objections again were off the charts claiming that it was a gift to China, Russia and big tech. His objection re the latter was based on the fact that he believed that social media was biased against him and conservatives and that they should be regulated, The POTUS was also unhappy that the Confederate named bases, forts and entities would have their names changed and objected strongly to this injunction. He claimed without proof that the act made it more difficult to bring the troops home and to install 5G into the armed forces. The override of Trump’s veto needed two thirds of legislators to support it and in the House a hundred Republicans defied his exhortations and joined with the Democrats to effect this.
The Senate override debate will be more of the same. The vote has been delayed as a result of the filibustering of Bernie Sanders who attempted to force a vote to increase the direct Covid payments.
IMPACT OF THE TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS DIRECT PAYMENT DEBATE ON GEORGIA SENATE RACE
Needless to say Perdue and Loeffler the two Senatorial candidates who are loosing momentum supported Trump’s appeal for the increase. The emphasis on this is really a double edged sword for the pair. Their objective should just be to turn out the all the Republican voters that voted for the Senate in the November elections. That is all they have to do as they garnered a hundred thousand more votes than the Democratic candidates.
Their move from initially not believing any Covid direct payments should be made, to backing a six hundred dollar amount to finally opting for two thousand dollars strains the credibility of the Georgian Republican candidates. However to quote Kelly Loeffler she will agree with any and all Trump’s policies. This particular policy is not Republican fiscal policy. It is big big government handing out tax money to the “lazy bums” who don’t want to work. Even if McConnell supported it he would have his work cut out to get his whole caucus behind it. So whatever Perdue/Loeffler by their adherence to Trumpian edict may gain they stand to lose even more votes by the Conservative base giving the election a miss. A Fox News survey indicated that Republican voters were four times as likely not to vote again as were their Democratic counterparts in the Senate rerun.
TRUMP RETURNS TO GEORGIA
Trump who to say the least was disinterested for the most part in the Georgian runoffs mainly as a result of his continual feud with the Governor and the Secretary of State for certifying, after three recounts, the Biden victory in their state. (One of Trump’s lawyers is still running around exhorting Republicans not to vote on January the fifth because the Republican candidates have not called for Governor Kemp and Secretary Raffensperger to resign). At the POTUS’S first rally he spent ninety percent of his energy attacking the latter and wailing that the election had been stolen from him.
For whatever reasons Trump has now decided to have another of his cult meetings on January the fourth to rally the Republicans to vote the next day. Presumably he is doing so to help his newest best friends, Perdue/Loeffler and the Republican Party. However, his announcement was accompanied by a renewed attack on Governor Kemp and Secretary Raffensperger. Jay H. Ell believes that Trump will use this meeting more as an attack on the Republicans and the Judiciary who have not assisted him in overturning his defeat.
THE BIG ONE: REVERSING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND DECLARING TRUMP PRESIDENT.
Trump is still fighting to remain President presumably for a life long term. His strength is that he registered nearly seventy - five million votes in the Presidential election, notwithstanding his disgraceful, incompetent, corrupt and self serving behavior. Most important to the Republican legislators is the fact that he can use his influence to terminate their careers. This makes the latter ambivalent as to how to approach this attempt by Trump to overturn the election. The House Republicans have already shown their hand when a hundred and twenty six members signed onto Trump’s effort to get the Supreme Court to reverse the outcome. Their attitude seems to be that this quixotic move by Trump has no chance of success so why antagonize him any further, having challenged him on his Covid payments and overridden his veto on the Defense Appropriations Bill.
There are still daily court challenges which are repetitive and irrelevant. However Trump is placing all his hopes on the new “Big One” on January 6, the reversal of the Electoral College count to declare Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 Presidential election. In the main the thrust is being led by the usual “loony” suspects in the House of Representatives. However they will get a big Republican following in the hope that this will keep Trump off their backs for their earlier votes against him and that the fact that the whole process is a meaningless charade.
The “loony” House Republican parade filed a law suit which insists that Vice President Pence is able to negate the results in the swing states and therefore declare Trump the winner. Pence who has been the most loyal sycophant Vice President in history has bucked on this one and has filed to have the case dismissed. This has resulted in enraging The Leader who reckons Pence has sold out too. On its face the litigation is ludicrous because it means which ever Party has the Presidency can declare, via the Vice President, themselves the winners regardless of the outcome of the polls.
The Republican legislative opposition to Trump’s claim has come from McConnell who wants as little debate as possible on the confirmation of the Electoral College result which he has accepted way back. However if just one Senator goes along with the odd squad in the House there can be days of long debate starting on January 6. This is not only destructive of democracy it is divisive of the Republican Party. Trump for his part has egged on his street crew to come out to Washington January 6, all but sanctioning violence. “Be Wild” he has exhorted. The Proud Boys another of his gangs have been told “to stand by”.
McConnell has been defied by a newly elected Senator from Missouri, Senator Hawley who fancies himself as Trump’s successor and mouths populist causes. He has been hammered all round but is undeterred. McConnell is now in a quandary as he has nineteen Senators facing re election in 2022 whom he wanted to just have to vote up or down and not have to face motions that Trump should have the Presidency awarded to him. The Senate Minority Leader has now released his caucus to vote whichever way it is politically expeditious for them to do. That shows exactly where his principles lie - in political expediency.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
For those that are worried that America is a banana Republic, stop worrying, it is! The fight for what is left of the Republican Party will be won by McConnell. Trump will be a private citizen on January 20, 2021 with legal woes by the ton. His ragbag of American hooligans who have been described by the FBI as the main terrorist threat to America will not overturn the government. For those who feel sorry for McConnell save your tears for the record number of Covid victims both medically and economically. He with Barr and Graham have been the enablers in chief. Jay H. Ell will not be surprised however if they are part of the many who are going to write memoirs rationalizing that the reasons they hung in with this criminal President were to modify his behavior!
Trump will continue his rampage and leave the Presidency insisting he was robbed. His influence will wane. Already the Murdoch stable have abandoned him. There has been the slow and steady drip drip from Fox News, The New York Post, his most unashamed newsprint backer has told him “To stop the Insanity” and accept his loss while the prestigious Wall Street Journal has echoed the same sentiments. He is now down to his inane tweets and odd ball TV Stations.
America is witnessing the last tango of Trump the question is how someone like Senator Hawley can exploit the populism following that is still very much there. The new populists will have Trump to contend with who will hang onto his cult in the hope that they will be a kind of protecsia against the State of New York’s judicial arm. Whether or not the Trump departure heralds the end or the end of the beginning is to a large extent dependent on what President number 46 is able to achieve. It has to be realized that a large chunk of legislators actually will vote to overturn an election that has been found by the courts, State legislatures and even Barr’s Justice Department to be legitimate,
As for Trump his last gasps will be what ever destruction he can think off and the pardons for him and his family.
PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL QUOTE FOR THE DAY
“…. every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power….” - Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2017.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Don’t quote Jay H. Ell but he thinks that Trump will manage the near impossible - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Georgia. He also has smashed the Republican Party beyond repair and paved the way for a totalitarian power grab.
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