Republicans used to be the party of freedom, the party of President Abraham Lincoln. This week, 126 Republicans in Congress and 18 red state attorneys general decided to repudiate the legacy of Lincoln and freedom by endorsing Texas' ludicrous legal effort to overturn the election results. The good news is that the Supreme Court dismissed the case with no public dissents Friday night. The bad news is that a majority of congressional Republicans chose to support a demagogue over our democracy. It should not be forgotten or forgiven.

These 126 hyper-partisan politicians should now be known as members of the autocrat caucus. From Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham to New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, they added their names to this infamous list in a desperate attempt to overturn the election in four swing states won by Joe Biden. They decided to attack democracy itself when the results did not go their way.

Don't be fooled by whatever ornate excuses they make. This was not an attempt to find new evidence or even more absurdly "defend the constitution". It was objectively the opposite. Perhaps some of these 126 believed this a way to raise money from the base, insurance against a difficult partisan primary, or more to the point, insurance against an uncomfortable tweet from President Donald Trump. They surrendered their conscience and common sense because of fear and greed. Rarely have so many sold out their country for so little.

These chose to support a case based on false claims and lack of evidence. And it's particularly pathetic to see them do it for a weak and insecure lame duck President Trump, a would-be autocrat who's driving this nation to some kind of desperate reckoning based on nothing more than his own psychological inability to deal with the fact he lost an election and lost the ability to recognize reality as well. In most cases, that would be dismissed as a sad form of sickness that's incompatible with the power of the presidency, but these folks chose to trade their integrity to support Trump's delusion all the way up to the Supreme Court.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-the-126-republicans-who-signed-on-for-an-act-of-cynical-unpatriotic-undemocratic-hypocrisy/ar-BB1bTO0N?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz

Brief from 126 Republicans supporting Texas lawsuit in Supreme Court

The signatories include several House Republican leaders: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Gary Palmer.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/politics/read-house-republicans-texas-supreme-court/index.html

Donald Trump is a lame duck. His decisions in the final weeks of his presidency will be driven by delusion, self-enrichment, and trying to handicap Joe Biden so Trump won’t be shamed by comparison. He could wreak untold damage on America unless he’s finally checked by Congress.
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Congressional Republicans should fear Trump’s threat to America’s national interest more than his political clout. Many among the 74 million who voted for Trump voted for the party and its conservative policies — not for the man. Others bought into Republican propaganda warning that Biden would institute socialism and questioning his mental acuity. They settled for Trump. But they aren’t cultists with blind allegiance who will adhere to Trump after he’s lost his presidential powers.

There’s more to worry about. Congressional Republicans and Trump’s inner circle are concerned that Trump is delusional with no grip on reality. They note he regularly stumbles, slurs, gets confused, has trouble synthesizing information and exhibits signs of dementia.

Psychologist John Gartner believes Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” a diagnosis which combines paranoia, sociopathy, and sadism –“the closest thing psychiatry has to a true human monster.” More than 800 mental-health professionals warned, “failing to…understand the psychological aspects” of humiliating Trump “could lead to catastrophic outcomes.” Now that he’s been humiliated there’s no telling what he’s capable of.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/trumps-biggest-betrayal-yet-could-come-in-the-last-days-of-his-presidency/

The Arizona Supreme Court voted unanimously to strike down a baseless election fraud lawsuit filed by Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and other Trump allies.

“The Court concludes, unanimously, that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the request to continue the hearing and permit additional inspection of the ballots,” the ruling read. “The November 9, 2020 hand count audit revealed no discrepancies in the tabulation of votes and the statistically negligible error presented in this case falls far short of warranting relief under A.R.S. 16-672.”

It continued, “Because the challenge fails to present any evidence of ‘misconduct,’ ‘Illegal votes’ or that the Biden Electors ‘did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office,’ let alone establish any evidence of fraud or a sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election results …”
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The court also unanimously ruled that there were “no discrepancies in vote tabulations,” “negligible error,” and “no evidence of fraud or a sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election result.” Despite the Trump campaign’s claims, the court confirmed there is “certainty in the result,” according to the publication.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/arizona-supreme-court-delivers-major-blow-to-gop-chair-kelli-ward/

Biden won the 2020 presidential election with 80 million votes, the largest total for any presidential candidate in U.S. history. He defeated Donald Trump by almost 7 million votes. The American people spoke at the ballot box and gave Biden a clear mandate to lead the country out of the Age of Trump and the coronavirus pandemic.

But Trump and his followers do not care for such quaint notions of democracy. The only votes that “count,” according to Trump’s neofascist movement, are his supporters’ votes for him. Democracy — especially multiracial democracy — is deemed illegitimate if Trump or other white Republicans and right-wing extremists are not in power.

In response to Biden’s victory, Donald Trump has launched a coup attempt, effectively a range of attacks against the rule of law and the country’s other democratic norms. This ongoing plot involves far-fetched lawsuits (all of which have failed), “burrowing in” loyalists into key national security and other government positions to sabotage the Biden administration, causing more harm to the economy, worsening the coronavirus pandemic and destabilizing strategic areas of the world.
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I realized, OK, I had good faith and I don’t knock myself for it.But I’m now going to invest that in helping the majority become stronger, to add more numbers to our ranks, which I think Democrats can do. To help craft policies that will help all Americans, despite all their cruelty and their conspiracy theories and their racism. To this day, do you know what I want for Trump voters? Affordable health care, a living wage, a good paying job, Social Security, good infrastructure, high-speed internet and success for their families. And what do they need from me? To suffer. That is the difference between us. I will move forward to a better future for all Americans, and if they want to catch up to the rest of us then we are here waiting for them. I cannot help someone who refuses to help themselves.

Jan. 20 cannot get here fast enough. Donald Trump is running wild with his disingenuous and false proclamations of a rigged election, rampant voter fraud and a stolen victory. Unbelievably, he is now claiming that the FBI and Department of Justice contributed to his fantastical claims of voter fraud. We have 50 days to go to survive this madman’s deceitful and harmful rhetoric.

Let us be clear: Joe Biden won the election fair and square in what has arguably been the most scrutinized election in recent U.S. history. Trump has filed baseless and frivolous lawsuits and not a shred of evidence of massive voter fraud has been offered. In fact, his attorneys, with their bar licenses on the line, have repeatedly stated on the record, “This is not a fraud case.” Yet Trump persists with his attention-seeking rants and raves.

Trump has lost. His psyche cannot handle the reality of the moment — that he has been repudiated by the American people. He is embarrassed, humiliated and scared, quite likely because he knows he is facing federal and state criminal charges once he leaves office. Trump is desperately trying to hold onto power to save his own hide. This is about his self-preservation. This is about him hiding out in the Oval Office so that he can avoid incarceration. To be sure, Trump’s desperation is a confession-of-sorts of his wrongdoing.
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Just like a screaming and defiant young child, Trump needs to be put in timeout — indefinitely. He should be silenced. He should be sequestered. We must not allow him to have the attention he thrives on — and any attention is positive reinforcement to him. The media must not allow his virulent voice to be heard.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/donald-trump-is-acting-like-a-spoiled-toddler-america-must-give-him-a-permanent-timeout-mental-health-experts/

The silence of congressional Republican leaders as President Donald Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud grow wilder and more venomous increasingly resembles the party's deference to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the worst excesses of his anti-Communist crusade in the early 1950s.

In McCarthy's era, most of the GOP's leaders found excuses to avoid challenging conspiracy theories that they knew to be implausible, even as evidence of their costs to the nation steadily mounted. For years, despite their private doubts about his charges and methods alike, the top GOP leadership -- particularly Senate Republican leader Robert A. Taft, the Mitch McConnell of his day -- either passively abetted or actively supported McCarthy's scattershot claims of treason and Communist infiltration. A significant faction of Senate Republicans didn't join with Democrats to curb McCarthy's power until the senator immolated himself with his accusations, in highly publicized 1953 and 1954 hearings, that the Army was riddled with Communists during the presidency of fellow Republican Dwight Eisenhower.

In many respects, the congressional GOP response to Trump has paralleled the party's response to McCarthy. Whatever their private concerns about Trump's behavior or values, the vast majority of congressional Republicans have supported Trump since his 2017 inauguration at almost every turn, brushing aside concerns about everything from openly racist language to his efforts to extort the government of Ukraine to manufacture dirt on the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.
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Just like congressional Republicans now with Trump, GOP legislators then found themselves following McCarthy into deeper and deeper waters of conspiracy theories. An early indication of how far McCarthy might go came in June 1951, when he delivered a 60,000-word attack on George Marshall, the brilliant Army chief of staff in World War II and later secretary of state for Truman. It was in that speech that McCarthy famously (or infamously) declared that he was unraveling "a conspiracy ... so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/01/politics/gop-silence-trump-false-election-claims-mccarthy/index.html