Congressional Republicans face no consequences for aiding 'stolen' election narrative

The 2022 midterm elections are weeks away — when American voters will, among other things, decide whether to retain or add new members to the U.S. House of Representatives (all 435 seats).

Yes, it’s a different year and a different election. Nevertheless, the profound disquiet from the 2020 presidential election lingers on. The troubling moments associated with that election are many, but the one thing I can’t erase is the memory of a majority of Republican members of the U.S. House — which included Kat Cammack of Gainesville, representing Florida’s 3rd Congressional District — voting, on Jan. 6, 2021, to reject the results of the Electoral College.

That vote could not have been more consequential — given that it directly challenged the Electoral College count that would seal Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. And it took place in the immediate aftermath of the ferocious storming of the U. S. Capitol Building by several thousand Trump supporters. It was the first time in American history that supporters of a losing presidential candidate had violently attacked the Capitol to disrupt or delay certification of the election.

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Given the weighty nature of the vote and the extraordinary events surrounding it, one might have thought that the 139 members of the House voting to upend a legitimate election would face some kind of backlash. In other words, some accountability.

But, of course, that’s only in the real world, not in the bizarro world created by Trump followers, where up is down and down is up. Indeed, 20 months removed from their infamous vote, it appears that most of the members taking that vote will coast to victory in November — untouched by being part of a cabal to impede the peaceful transfer of power.

If anything, the very opposite seems to have happened. In an exhaustive survey, the New York Times reports that members who voted to reject the 2020 electoral count have largely been able to turn their votes into a “badge of honor with the [Republican] party.”

In fact, more than speeches or rallies, their votes on Jan. 6 helped to further propel the GOP’s trumped-up narrative about a “stolen” election. Those members, on that day, writes the Times: effectively “legitimized Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede, gave new life to his claims of conspiracy and fraud, and lent institutional weight to doubts about the central ritual of American democracy.”

Any momentary concern about potentially negative consequences quickly dissipated. Because, for today’s Republicans, one’s identity with the party is derived by affirmatively denying what’s patently obvious. Of course, Joe Biden received more popular votes and a majority of electoral votes.

But to be relevant in the contemporary Republican Party, you must deny those provable, objective facts, and proclaim that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen" based on rampant fraud. In so doing, you must also deny the veritable avalanche of court decisions (more than 60, nationwide) that flatly rejected all claims of fraud.

In the age of Trump, most Republican politicians either fall in line or remain mum (not wanting to experience the leader’s wrath). Rather than exhibiting political courage or independence, they do what’s expedient to survive and advance — which usually means staving off a more conservative primary opponent.

That’s why it’s not surprising that nearly two-thirds of the GOP membership in the U.S. House of Representatives would vote to turn a ceremonial task under the Constitution into a monumental effort to overturn a presidential election.

Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes, just keep lying and denying. It may sound like looney tunes orthodoxy, but it’s real and it’s contributing to the radicalization and corruption of the Republican Party which, in turn, is chipping away at the essence of the American democratic experiment.

It’s the most maddening question of the moment: Why would so many elected officials (sworn to uphold our laws and system) go to bat for a disgraced, twice-impeached president who had just lost an election?

Inciting and directing a mob to charge the Capitol to change an election is the ultimate undemocratic act. It shouldn’t be without consequences.

In the end, voting to challenge the Electoral College count made participating members part of the attempted Trump coup — which, in “normal” times, could have damaged reputations. However, for now, and within their own party, it’s resulted in praise not scorn.

Carl Ramey, a retired Washington communications attorney and monthly columnist for The Sun, lives in Gainesville.

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Carl Ramey: No backlash for congressional Republicans for Jan. 6 vote