The Vice President, who is called "Mr. President" here because he is ex officio President of the Senate, has no patience for repeated efforts by members of his own party to disrupt the certification.
It would have been different if they had been able to get even one Senator to sign on. Apparently, no one wanted to be that person -- not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not even Rand Paul.
10 comments:
I think a couple of Republicans should have gone for it, trolling the Democrats.
They were wasting everybody's time.
Valerie
I was waiting for the cry-in :p
I'm having a very hard time being amused by any of this. It's an attempt to overturn the result of an election and substitute another President of their choosing.
I'm not sure how serious an attempt it was, or whether they would perhaps back off if they caught the car... but for it to get to the point where it's not some blowhard in a bar or on a blog, but elected officials on the floor of Congress, means it's gotten way too far already.
The mechanism is lawful, and the most it could have accomplished is to throw the decision to the House. I don't regard it as particularly out of line to have tried lawful means of opposition.
I'm having a very hard time being amused by any of this. It's an attempt to overturn the result of an election and substitute another President of their choosing.
Sure it is. Laws and process don't end human aggression. They just channel it, and allow us to resolve disputes without killing each other. This is how the system is *supposed* to work - it's never going to breed idiocy or aggression out of us, or prevent them (laws against murder and rape don't prevent murder and rate either).
In this case, the outgoing VP of the United States enforced the law against his own party's interest. That's a *good* thing, I think. I also think it's arguably a good thing when people go overboard and end up annoying even the folks on their own side.
Like a child's temper tantrum, it provides an object lesson on the usefulness of rules.
Well, it's a supportable argument (both Cass and Grim): it is a lawful process, and they followed the rules.
Still, this sets a new normal, even though no direct harm is done, and I can't see it as a good thing to have this much slippage in what is normal. The next time a Republican president is elected, the same people will feel the same need to show just how upset they are, and they'll need to go further to do so. This time, they failed to make sure of the Vice President before trying. Next time....
.... It makes a shiver run down my spine. This whole let's-get-the-results-overturned brand of protest does, because eventually it will succeed. And also because I can see that there are way too many people who don't think they've gone overboard at all. It's like seeing a tumor in the lung on an X-ray.
Reading history, I often find myself thinking that our notion of "normal" is anything but, historically.
FWIW, I agree with you 100% that this behavior is alarming, and I worry about it gradually growing to be considered "the new normal" to protest, whine, cry, carry on, and generally try to prevail by temper tantrums and bad behavior. I really do understand, because I find all of this terribly distasteful and alarming.
But I also think we live in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity, in which things that used to happen all the time happen more rarely. In that sense, I think we live in a bit of a bubble.
Caution and concern are definitely appropriate - I didn't mean to appear to dismiss your concerns, because I share them. I suppose I just also take comfort in watching Biden grow visibly frustrated with these folks, and uphold the law :)
It did make me think better of Biden.
According to this article at the Washington Examiner, this has been normal for some time.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-dont-accept-election-outcome-again/article/2611125#.WHEr5hKs6gU.twitter
In 2000, 2004 and 2016, Democrats in Congress objected, tried to object, and generally disrupted the process of certifying the Electoral College vote. They did so with no substantive grounds, instead just for the political theater of it.
and
Twelve years ago, Democrats actually delayed the Electoral College certification. They got Sen. Barbara Boxer to object to Ohio's Electoral College vote. George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 120,000 votes in Ohio, but Democrats got their debate and their vote on the electors. House Democrats used the occasion mostly to attack Ken Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, who was a rising star in politics and — horror of horrors — a black conservative.
Post a Comment