President Donald Trump’s insurrection and Sen. Rick Scott’s acquiescence
Having spent four years wrecking as many American traditions and institutions as he could lay his hands on, President Trump accomplished the ultimate act of sedition Wednesday. He should be impeached again or set aside under the 25th Amendment.
With fiery words, unmistakable in their purpose, he incited a mob to attack and invade the U. S. Capitol, pillaging offices, breaching the Senate chamber and disrupting the session of Congress that was counting the electoral votes for his successor. Four deaths were attributed to the riot.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R- Utah, put the blame where it most belonged: “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” he shouted in the Senate chamber as members were hustled to safety.
Not long before, Trump had spoken behind bulletproof glass to a mass of his MAGA- hat wearing supporters, including the proto- Nazi Proud Boys and followers of QAnon, in which he explicitly urged them to march on the Capitol.
“And after this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down ... to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” Trump told the crowd. “And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
Instead of “being there,” he went back to the White House to relish in safety what he was seeing on television. He waited hours to issue a statement telling the mob to go home. It was too little, too late, and transparently insincere, repeating his poisonous lies about the election and telling the criminals, “We love you. You’re very special.”
If Trump and his hoodlums meant to prevent the certification of his successor, they not only failed; the violence backfired on them. There were fewer votes than expected for the challenges to the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral slates, the only two that came to a vote. Some, notably including the just- defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, said the violence had prompted them to withdraw their objections. With her change of heart, the Georgia slate was uncontested.
What should have been a one- hour, pro forma ceremony took nearly 17 to carry out, but it ended as almost everyone else knew it would and should. Congress confirmed the 306 electoral votes to make Joe Biden and Kamala Harris president and vice president on January 20. The urgent work of repairing our nation, with responsible voices at the bully pulpit once again, will begin.
But most of Florida’s Republican lawmakers were on the wrong side of those votes and on the wrong side of history. So were a majority of all House Republicans. In the Senate, only seven Republicans took Trump’s side.
They gave credence to Trump’s torrents of lies about the election, a witch’s brew of propaganda that has been found baseless in more than 60 court cases.
Every “yes” vote was faithless to the Constitution. It disgraced their offices and forfeited forever any rightful claim to the public’s trust.
The villains from Florida were Sen. Rick Scott, who voted against a challenge to Arizona electors but in favor of the specious objections to Pennsylvania’s. Also, Republican House members Matt Gaetz, Neal Dunn, Kat Cammack, John Rutherford, Bill Posey, Carlos Gimenez, Daniel Webster, C. Scott Franklin, W. Gregory Steube, Brian Mast, Byron Donalds and Mario Diaz- Balart. Reps. Michael Waltz and Vern Buchanan were the only Florida House Republicans who voted no. Gus Bilirakis did not vote and freshman Maria Salazar hasn’t been sworn in on account of her COVID- 19 quarantine.
As for Trump, he has 12 more days of extremely dangerous potential to the nation he has already betrayed. As even conservative voices began saying, Vice President Pence and the Cabinet must consider invoking the 25th Amendment and declaring Trump unable to carry out his duties. The Republican governor of Vermont was among those voices. So was the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Some members of Congress began discussing another impeachment, even with Trump’s time in office so short. It would be warranted.
He must have been listening, for once. Through surrogates — his own social media sites were blocked — he promised an orderly transition. Remember, though, that Trump’s promises are usually worthless.
Invoking the 25th Amendment is asking much of people whom Trump chose for their loyalty, but they must understand that they now owe a greater duty to their country.
To his credit, Pence stood up boldly to Trump’s demand that he unlawfully dispose of Biden’s electoral slates. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had denied the Senate any testimony in Trump’s impeachment trial last year, described his vote to accept Biden’s electors as the most important of his 36 years in Congress.
That said, McConnell was instrumental in discouraging all but seven Republican senators from voting for what he said would be a “death spiral” for democracy. It would establish “a poisonous path where only the winners of elections actually accept the results,” he said. Many questions linger, among them why the Capitol and District of Columbia police were so unprepared for the violence and vandalism, and why so few arrests ensued. Those call for a Congressional investigation.
The most troubling issue is why any Congress members supported the electoral vote challenges that they knew were bound to fail.
It wasn’t about any real devotion to Trump, although he may think so.
What Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott and their followers really sought was the appearance of loyalty to the aspiring dictator. They craved his support and feared his opposition in future Republican primaries, for whatever either may be worth.
Most of all, they wanted to impress the party’s grass roots with their fealty to a president most Republican voters still admire, no matter how undeserving he is.
Hawley, Cruz and Scott have transparent presidential ambitions.
Don’t believe any claim that their votes were harmless. Far from it. They fostered the subversive fiction that the presidential election wasn’t fair and honest. In so doing, they helped Trump seriously sabotage the public’s faith in our government.
That was as subversive as giving direct aid and comfort to foreign enemies, which would constitute treason.