Trump is Testing Democracy. Nine out of 10 Senior Elected Republicans are Failing

President Trump is cynically trying to overturn the election results based on claims of fraud that are themselves fraudulent. He is unlikely to succeed. But if he did, the United States’ 232-year history as a democracy would be finished. Now is a time of testing: Do you stand with the democrats or the autocrats?

Unfortunately, most Republicans are failing this test — just as they have failed every other test during Trump’s presidency. According to Axios, only six Republican senators (out of 53), seven Republican governors (out of 26) and 10 Republican members of the House (out of 197) have thus far acknowledged that Joe Biden won. That means fewer than 1 in 10 of the most senior elected Republicans publicly stands behind our electoral system. Even fewer have followed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in warning that Trump’s unfounded claim of election-rigging “damages the cause of freedom.”

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has often championed freedom abroad, but now he is a threat to freedom at home. The Republican secretary of state in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, says that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee pressured him to throw out as many ballots as possible in a state that Biden won narrowly. (Graham denies it.) Anyone who thought that Lickspittle Lindsey would grow a spine now that he has been reelected — and Trump defeated — will be disabused of that illusion.

Most Republicans aren’t as egregious as Graham. They’re simply cowards who offer mealy-mouthed support for Trump’s election challenges. Asked on Tuesday whether he considers Biden the president-elect, outgoing Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) replied: “I’m not going to play your gotcha questions.” Actually, it’s an easy question — if you have any integrity. Which Gardner clearly does not. Neither, it seems, does General Services Administrator Emily Murphy, who is blocking federal agencies from working with the Biden transition team.