The Republican Party prides itself in being the party of “law and order.” When hundreds of thousands of people protested police brutality against African Americans, the GOP and its propaganda station Fox News incessantly called for law and order.
And yet, when in deference to their fallen leader, the vast majority of Republican house representatives and seven Republican United States senators tried to block the certification of the presidential election and deny the will of the people, most Republicans remained conspicuously silent. And when thousands of Trump loyalists incited by our so-called “law and order” president literally invaded the halls of congress and people were killed, Trump was reluctant to condemn those who worship at his altar. So much for law and order.
There is nothing more sacred to our democracy than honoring the results of our elections. This past presidential election was not close. The fact is that Biden won both the popular vote by over seven million votes and the electoral college with the same 306 electoral college votes that Trump won four years earlier.
The results have been challenged where they ought to be—in courts of law. Without exception, the Trump challenges were thrown out in courts throughout the land. In a country of law and order, that is where this farce should have ended.
But no, these so-called patriots who drape themselves in our flag and who, when it suits their agenda, defy the very courts they helped appoint, now commit treason by refusing to accept the election results.
One Republican congressman from Texas, Louie Gohmert, went so far as calling for violence after a federal judge appointed by Trump threw out his frivolous lawsuit, “But if the bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy’—basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.” His call for violence incited violence, and he should be immediately removed from serving in the house of representatives.
The Republican Party is now split between those who worship at the feet of Donald Trump and those who still believe in our Constitution. Senator Ben Sasse had the courage of his convictions to say recently, “Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long term damage. But they’re wrong—and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.
Let us pray that one day Ben Sasse will speak for the majority of Republicans, and that law and order will be more than a political slogan.
Burt Ross