One simple question. On March 25, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, asked four judicial nominees: Who won the 2020 election?
And President Donald Trump’s picks for lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary would not answer.
Sheria Akins Clarke, Kathleen S. Lane, Evan Rikhye and Kara Marie Westercup provided cookie-cutter responses that Congress had certified Joe Biden. Pressed as to who actually won, won the popular vote, they would not admit that Biden had won and Trump had lost.
Blumenthal chastised the nominees for answers “which are obviously canned. They’re pre-rehearsed, and they’re Orwellian in their denial of reality.” He worried that their “complete lack of independence” would affect any rulings where Trump’s agenda is at stake.
Pressed as to the attempted coup of Jan. 6, 2021, Rikhye stammered and turned off his microphone, and Lane offered: “Senator, the characterization of Jan. 6 is ongoing. It’s subject to ongoing characterization and debate and as a nominee it would be inappropriate for me to characterize it.”
Trump unleashed a mob against the U.S. Congress. Those who did not watch it live have seen the footage.
To say that “some people” have a different opinion or that rioters seeking to “hang Mike Pence” were Capitol tourists is to endorse lying Trumpspeak in order to avoid the wrath of Trump and his most committed cultists.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, harrumphed at the nominees’ evasions:
“I hope you realize how ridiculous the four of you look, spouting these preposterous, canned answers in a forum where you are supposed to tell the truth and demonstrate the judicial capacity to make independent factual decisions in hard cases.
“If you cannot even sit here and say that Joe Biden won that election or that the Capitol was attacked, what is left?”
We had heard about Biden’s receiving certification in 2021 versus his victory in 2020 earlier in March during the hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin en route to his becoming Homeland Security secretary.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-MI, asked: “Who won the 2020 election?”
Mullin – who voted against certifying the 2020 election results while serving in the House [after crouching in fear during the Capitol invasion] – replied: “Ma’am, we know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office. He was the president for the last four years.”
Facts do not matter to Trump loyalists – not surprising since Trump is the lying-ist public figure in U.S. history. Their Orwellian denial of reality is essential to staying in the president’s good graces.
They choose to endorse the lies, even the obvious ones. Their lies resemble passwords to juvenile clubhouses – magic words of admission and inclusion.
And they resent troublemakers who actually flatter them by suggesting they might be capable of thinking for themselves.
Still suffering through about a decade of Trump’s election lies, many may not remember that previously the integrity of our elections was seldom questioned. Nor should they be. We know our election officials. They know us by repetition. Actual scandals have been rare.
But even though Trump was elected president in 2016, the delicate feelings of the orange snowlake suffered because the bluest states overwhelmingly rejected him – his shaky grasp of reality already evident.
For the record, Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump in 2016, and, again in victory in 2024, Trump failed to win a majority of the popular vote. [Biden pulled 51% in 2020.]
So, we have a bogus, Trump-instigated voting crisis, which Trumpistas are trying to use to make it harder for supposed opponents to vote but which would make voting harder for everyone.
How many of you have immediate access to your birth certificate? At $15 in Oklahoma, and from $10 to $34 nationwide, getting a birth certificate would constitute a poll tax, that historic restrictor of ballot participation.
What kinds of Americans erect roadblocks to voting, try to deny basic rights to their fellow citizens? Bigoted fascists come to mind. Despising our principles, they’re working to destroy them.
This also gives loyalists a way to prove their loyalty to their liar-in-chief.
Those election deniers are liars working against our republic. They know better; they don’t care. Credibility is an abstract concept for those assuaging Trump’s ego.
Worse, they scream “Election Fraud” each time they lose – and Trump has already floated that claim should midterms prove as anti-GOP as recent special elections. Furthermore, our fascists have prepared the foundation to say legitimate claims against elections they plan to rig are reciprocal whining.
Their goal is to make us numb, insinuate their lying into a valid debate. Loyalty first – to the latest Trump pronouncement, regardless of how it contradicts his previous statements or is just plain, damn false.
