"The Supreme Court really let us down" was Donald Trump's reaction to Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting an appeal led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, joined by 17 other states and 106 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, to invalidate the presidential election results in four "battleground" states. Twenty-two other states filed a brief challenging the premise of the lawsuit, asserting that Texas and its allies were attempting to disenfranchise voters in legally held elections in other states.
The Supreme Court, including three of the nine members appointed by Trump himself, turned down the case, which Trump had declared was "the Big One," unlike the previous dozens of lawsuits challenging Joe Biden's election victory by a comfortable margin. Nearly all of the earlier lawsuits were dismissed by state and federal courts, often with harsh rebukes of the basic premise of the claims of election fraud, which were trumpeted without credible evidence.
The unanimous dismissal of the "Big One" had to hurt Trump. After all, he nakedly expedited a Supreme Court appointment of a conservative Republican because he believed the Supreme Court would ultimately determine the winner of the presidential election. Only justices Alito and Thomas offered a concern, a conservative one — that the case should not have gone directly to the Supreme Court but should have been tried in lower courts. Neither justice objected to the dismissal of the case.
It now appears likely that no future lawsuits will endanger Biden's claim to the Oval Office. Barring a military coup or armed insurrection by angry Trump loyalists, Biden will be inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021. The unnecessarily extended vote counting, appeals, recounts and partisan dismissal of legitimate voting results may finally be at an end.
After the Supreme Court ruled, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut declared on the Senate floor that Republicans who supported the president's election lawsuits and his support for efforts to delay or deny the results of a fair and free election should be called out for their anti-democracy actions. "You cannot, at the same time, love America and hate democracy," he said, adding that Democrats should hold the anti-democratic traitors accountable for their attempt to overthrow a legally elected government.
If the Democrats are smart enough to follow Murphy's recommendation (an iffy proposition), they will make the actions of those who have blindly followed Trump's authoritarian, president-for-life strategy the theme of the 2022 and 2024 elections. That strategy, wisely delivered, would decimate the Republican Party.
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