Sedition Then, Sedition Now, Sedition Forever

E.J. Dionne, Jr., recalls the temperamental and radical ancestors of the current crop of anti- democracy Republican seditionists by way of explaining why they're even worse than their forbears:

At least the Confederate secessionists acknowledged that Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election.

The 18 Republican state attorneys general and 126 Republican House members who asked the Supreme Court to throw out the results of the 2020 election had more impudence even than the Civil War seditionists in whose steps they followed.

Here is a translation of what they were telling a majority of the nation’s electorate and voters in states representing 62 of President-elect Joe Biden’s 306 electoral votes:

“We don’t like the president and vice president you chose so we simply won’t accept the result of a free election. We’ll deploy lies and phony statistics to get the United States Supreme Court to impose our will on the rest of the country. The heck with democracy. But we’ll continue to enjoy the Social Security checks, the farm subsidies and all the other money that states that voted for Biden send our way.” [snip]

Those who promote this nonsense should put up or shut up. If those House Republicans think our nation’s democratic process is illegitimate, they can demonstrate their sincerity by resigning — especially the 19 from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia who joined a lawsuit that would have annulled the votes of their states.

Yeah, he knows that won't happen.  Rep. Bill Pascrell's proposal to punish the 126 Republican Congressrats should, but most likely won't, happen either.  So, these cosplaying seditionists know they can get away with degrading our democracy just so they can prove their Trumpian bona fides to the Dear Leader and his dimwitted, frothing cult.  Good tradeoff!

But anti- democratic impulses combined with overwhelming bad faith isn't just a recent element of Republican DNA.  Right- wingers also tried to deny John F. Kennedy his electoral victory in 1960. Here's a snippet from Ronald Shafer's article about that attempted hijacking:

It was a bitter, close election, and there were furious allegations of fraud.

After Democrat John F. Kennedy barely beat Republican Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 election, a coalition of opponents plotted to deny him the presidency in the electoral college. Most were White, conservative electors from the south who opposed the young Massachusetts senator’s liberal policies, especially his support for civil rights for Black Americans.

If these electors had succeeded, segregationist Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia would have been elected president. His vice president would have been Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Both men had nothing to do with the idea.

Of course, the difference in 1960 was that neither Richard Nixon nor Sens. Byrd or Goldwater would go along with the hijacking.  That Nixon -- Nixon! --would be something of a democracy defender in his day compared to Mango Mussolini and his rat infested party of 2020 is a stark illustration as to how far this collection of charlatans has stooped in the intervening years.

It won't be over for these anti- democracy rats after Monday's electoral college vote cementing Joe Biden's victory.  It won't be over for them after he and Kamala Harris are sworn in on January 20, 2021.  It won't be over for them as long as there's a Democrat in a position to assume and wield power.  It's sedition then, sedition now, sedition forever.