Los Angeles Times

The coup is phony, the damage is real

Senate ringleader­s trying to block Biden’s win are torching the Constituti­on

- DOYLE McMANUS McManus’ column appears on Sunday and Wednesday.

In 1783, Russia’s Prince Grigory Potemkin, in an effort to dazzle Empress Catherine the Great, is said to have erected facades that looked like beautiful houses along her route when she visited his province. Historians have cast doubt on the tale, but the term “Potemkin village” has lived on, coming to mean a false front intended to impress the gullible.

This week in Congress, we’ll see a novel applicatio­n of the concept: a Potemkin coup d’etat — an elaborate farce constructe­d to convince pro- Trump voters not only that the presidenti­al election was rigged ( it wasn’t), but that the president’s loyalists on Capitol Hill are mounting a heroic attempt to overturn it.

Even the ringleader­s of the drive to block Joe Biden’s electoral votes from being counted know their proposals are doomed to fail. The Democratic House of Representa­tives stands in the way — and so does a bipartisan majority in the Republican- led Senate.

So why are dozens of House members and more than 10 senators expected to challenge electoral votes that have been certified by the states?

Never mind that the Constituti­on doesn’t give Congress the power to reject electoral votes submitted by the states. The challenge is an irresistib­le opportunit­y to pander to President Trump and — more importantl­y — to his most zealous followers, who will be a powerful force in Republican primary elections in 2022 and 2024.

The two GOP senators leading the drive to block Biden’s election, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, know that their efforts are likely to “go down like a shot dog,” as another Republican senator put it.

They know Trump’s spurious claims of election fraud went nowhere in the courts, even when they came before judges the president appointed.

Cruz and Hawley also know that what they are proposing would violate the Constituti­on. Both brag of their education as constituti­onal lawyers — Cruz at Harvard, Hawley at Yale.

But both harbor unconceale­d ambitions of running for president, and both want the support of Trump’s voters. So they are competing in a frantic show of fealty to the increasing­ly erratic president — no small trick for Cruz, who quite accurately called Trump “a pathologic­al liar” when he ran against him in 2016.

If Cruz and Hawley challenge the electoral votes submitted by swing states on Wednesday, they will be staging acts of performanc­e art — a show to convince Trump voters that they are the president’s rightful heirs. In the service of their ambitions, they appear willing to touch off a constituti­onal crisis. That isn’t merely cynical; it’s criminally cynical.

Don’t take it from me; listen to their Republican colleagues.

“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,” Sen. Ben Sasse ( R- Neb.) said last week. “Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate selfgovern­ment.”

“Has ambition so eclipsed principle?” lamented Sen. Mitt Romney ( R- Utah).

OK, Sasse and Romney have never been Trumpites. But Sen. Tom Cotton ( RArk.) has, and he thinks blocking Biden’s electoral votes is a terrible idea, too.

“If Congress purported to overturn the results of the Electoral College, it would not only exceed [ its] power, but also establish unwise precedents,” Cotton said in a written statement.

Exactly. The precedent Cruz and Hawley want to set is that any party that loses a presidenti­al election will now feel free — perhaps even duty- bound — to try to block its certificat­ion in Congress.

For Republican­s who are paying attention, that’s not just an airy legal theory. As a group of GOP House members pointed out this week, Republican presidenti­al candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last eight elections spanning 28 years. They need the electoral college to win; that’s how Trump made it to the White House in 2016.

Plenty of Democrats grumbled about Trump’s victory without a plurality four years ago, but they didn’t attempt to override the Constituti­on. In 2005, one Democratic senator and one House member objected to the reelection of President George W. Bush — but unlike Trump today, Democratic presidenti­al candidate John F. Kerry disavowed their effort, and it quickly collapsed.

If a party with a congressio­nal majority can overturn presidenti­al election results at will, that’s a quick way to turn a democracy into a single- party state.

So when 2024 arrives, voters should remember Cruz, Hawley and those who join their Potemkin coup this week. They may succeed in proving themselves as loyal Trumpists — but along the way, they are also revealing themselves as would- be autocrats.

 ?? Brynn Anderson Associated Press ?? TEXAS Sen. Ted Cruz is among a group of Republican­s who will try to overturn the electoral college results, a move that is widely seen as doomed to fail.
Brynn Anderson Associated Press TEXAS Sen. Ted Cruz is among a group of Republican­s who will try to overturn the electoral college results, a move that is widely seen as doomed to fail.
 ?? Al Drago Associated Press ?? MISSOURI Sen. Josh Hawley is another Republican challengin­g Joe Biden’s election victory. Some GOP colleagues call the maneuver a threat to democracy.
Al Drago Associated Press MISSOURI Sen. Josh Hawley is another Republican challengin­g Joe Biden’s election victory. Some GOP colleagues call the maneuver a threat to democracy.
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