Senate Democrats bring down the roof on ridiculous Republican 2020 election hearing
The Electoral College officially certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory on Monday, alleviating lingering fears for some that Trump might still manage through hook or crook to steal the election and cement a second disastrous term for himself. Even so, it could be years before we get a full sense of the damage Trump has inflicted on our democracy with his baseless claims that the election was “rigged” and that voter fraud handed the win to Biden.
A non-negligible portion of Republican voters now believes that Trump actually won the election by millions of votes and Republican politicians have done little if anything to push back on this lunacy for fear of alienating their base. Many have decided to embrace a sort of gray wasteland in between embracing the president’s most insane claims and denouncing them and so they simply say that there are “serious concerns” about election integrity or that there are “questions that need to be answered.” The moral cowardice is astonishing.
Today, the Republican-controlled Senate decided to throw fuel on the fire. The Senate Homeland Security held a hearing on: “Examining Irregularities in the 2020 Election” which is nothing more than a transparent attempt by the GOP to reify the myth that there were voting irregularities this election cycle despite the fact that Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr has already admitted that the Department of Justice found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. In their pathetic, desperate crusade to appease the conspiracy theory-addled brains of Trump supporters, Republican officials are grinding faith in our democracy into a fine powder.
Add your name to tell Trump: You Lost! Concede!
While there is no excuse that can possibly justify Republican behavior at this moment in history, we can take some solace in knowing that video clips of their shameful actions will last forever. Future generations will know who did this and despise them accordingly. At the same time, our federal government is not utterly devoid of standup public servants, and Democratic senators used the hearing to attack the GOP’s lies.
Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) distinguished himself by slamming the Republican “conspiracy theories and lies” as a “destructive exercise that has no place in the U.S. Senate.”
Peters: "There were no widespread election irregularities that affected the final outcome. These claims are false. And giving them more oxygen is a grave threat to the future of our democracy… we have seen democracies around the world crumble b/c of similar words and actions." pic.twitter.com/ioGyB1Qxkr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) decried the proceedings as “shameful.”
.@SenatorCarper gets worked up: "This is shameful. Enough already. We have work to do to get America back on track starting right here in this Congress, in this house. All of us, Democrats and Republicans here in this body, need to do our jobs." pic.twitter.com/F0KabrSEvS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
During his testimony, Christopher Krebs former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for DHS, bluntly stated that it’s time for the country to abandon the conversation about election “irregularities.”
“I think we’re past the point where we need to be having conversations about the outcome of this election” — Krebs pic.twitter.com/NQfhDEvHTv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
Sparks flew when Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) decided to spew a stream of misinformation about election integrity and accused Democrats of spreading disinformation about him. Senator Peters hit back hard against the “false allegations” and told Johnson what he was doing to the committee was “terrible.”
A very heated moment between Ron Johnson and Gary Peters pic.twitter.com/e1zuGb9Kbr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
Senator Rand Paul (R-TX), one of the most reliably insufferable members of the GOP, beclowned himself by regurgitating the lie that the election was “stolen.”
“The election in many ways was stolen,” Rand Paul lies, citing no evidence pic.twitter.com/G4m7mU7qRV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
After today’s sham hearing Republicans cannot be ever allowed to give lip service to their love for democracy again. These men will burn the Republic to the ground if it means a few more shreds of power for themselves.
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