For many weeks, Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell has supported President Trump in his fight to overturn the election results and has refused to announce the presidency to Joe Biden while the lawsuits were still taking place. However this morning, even though the legal disputes have not been resolved, McConnell officially acknowledged Joe Biden as the president-elect of the United states and congratulated Biden’s win this morning with a speech on the Senate Floor.
“As of this morning, our country has officially a president-elect and a vice president-elect.The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said. McConnell went on to talk about how Joe Biden is “no stranger to the Senate. He has devoted himself to public service for many years.” In his speech, McConnell also congratulated Kamala Harris’ win as the first female vice president: “beyond our differences, all Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president for the very first time.” While the Senate majority leader’s congratulatory speech for the election would often happen without much interest from the public, Mitch McConnell’s speech this year was different. It was a powerful statement to Americans that the Republicans are beginning to distance themselves from Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his accusations of fraud. This is a significant moment in history because for weeks there has been a lot of accusations and distrust in the processes of our elections and government. However, McConnell’s recognition of Biden’s presidency is, in a sense, a respecting of the court decisions and a demonstration of faith in the electoral college. While there are still some House representatives who are still challenging the election, more and more senators are also accepting the election results and most senators are no longer joining Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama and other conservative House members in their efforts to challenge the Electoral college results.
While Trump has still not conceded, McConnell has announced that he would aide in this transition and plans to meet with Biden soon. Even though it took weeks before the GOP senator acknowledged the outcome, I do respect Biden for not getting ahead of himself and forcing his victory on his colleague, but instead waited for McConnell to come to that acknowledgement himself. Republicans are now moving forward into the transitional period of the presidency and McConnell is still going to work with Trump in the next few weeks to decide on the coronavirus stimulus deal.
The results of the votes from the members of the Electoral College from all 50 states are as follows: 306 Electoral college votes to Biden and 232 votes to Trump. Biden had also beat Trump by more than 7 million popular votes.
9 comments:
It has been 43 days since Election Day and 39 days since the election was called. McConnell’s support and recognition, as Senate GOP leader, is monumental in this election, as he hasn’t recognized Biden as President-elect ever. Having a influential leader like McConnell warn Senate Republicans, who have also been denying results as claims of election fraud spew out of Trump’s mouth, to not object to the election outcomes when the Senate affirms the vote in January can prove to be important down the road. I think Biden’s 30+ years served in the Senate may help ease the transition, and I believe Harris’s history in Washington will also help smooth the transition and aid her in presiding over the Senate.
This was essential to prove that the GOP party will still abide by the constitution and for a smooth transition. Since McConnell does have a lot of supporters that also claimed the election was fake, I think his acknowledgement of the election results will help calm down the chaos. That said, a smooth transition does not mean an easy presidency in any way shape or form. I agree with Kayla that Biden's senate years and Harris's experience in Washington D.C. will help with an easier transition. However with the pandemic and the effects of it now (ex: job market) they have a lot to deal with next year. Additionally we can expect ripple effects from the pandemic and I hope we can soon see a bipartisan movement to address these.
McConnell's public acknowledgement of Biden's win is definitely a critical shift in the decreasing support of Trump's fraudulent claims about the 2020 presidential election results. Like Tiffany mentioned, Trump is losing backing from his Republicans as his absurd demands continue, and as most people are getting on board with the fact that Biden won the election fairly, Trump is growing increasingly more isolated in his opinions. McConnell, along with other key officials, are vouching to support and aid in the peaceful transition of power, as more are denouncing the absurdities of Trump's claims. Further incentivizing governmental officials to defend the election results and welcome President-elect Biden is the fear of losing their jobs with the new administration. Many understand the need to please and openly support the incoming administration, or be threatened to be fired. This alone, along with common sense and judgement has led many others to publicly denounce Trump's continued efforts to remain in office unlawfully.
One thing that the Associated Press article mentions is how McConnell publicly warned other Republican senators and representatives to not join Trump’s election challenges. Georgia’s runoff elections for the Senate have yet to be decided, and, to win said elections, Republicans honoring the presidential election results could build the Republican party’s overall credibility by supporting a peaceful transition of power. As Republican support for Trump has heavily waned, McConnell’s move to congratulate Biden and join most senators in distancing themselves from Trump may be politically advantageous because it builds party unity. McConnell’s prestige of being the Senate majority leader can help steer the Republican party in one direction regarding the election conflict.
https://apnews.com/article/mitch-mcconnell-congratulates-joe-biden-2ed09a34fbbc3342fe45c733ee0dd725
I think this is an important move-- one that finally seems to represent more truth in political processes rather than supporting Trump to support him no matter the legal basis. And it is also true that McConnell has power and influence over the other Republican senators, whose cooperation in a transfer of power and beginning of Biden's presidency will be necessary. Biden has voiced his hope for working with everyone, no matter their party, and getting key people simply on board with his presidency is an important first step to doing that. I think it will be interesting to see, however, how the Congress and other government officials work with Biden and Harris once they actually begin working. Because, acknowledging Biden's win is different from cooperating in things like legislative processes, etc. so as of now, that can really can go any way.
While this can definitely be seen as a late action by Mitch McConnell, it is definitely good for a Republican senator to acknowledge President-elect Biden. However, it is no means an amazing thing that he has done due to its late nature. When Biden was VP alongside President Obama, Biden worked with Republican senators like McConnell, so it will definitely be interesting to see the possible collaboration between the pair when Biden takes office. President Trump lost the election over and over again, and Republicans stood with him, so hopefully now more Republicans feel comfortable with addressing President-elect Biden. I doubt McConnell's statement will prompt President Trump to concede in order to have a more peaceful transition of power, but it will be interesting to watch how it all pans out.
This event is quite relevant to the question on the final (for first period at least) about why it would benefit republicans to keep public trust in the electoral college. Overall, the electoral college benefits the republicans more than it hurts them for a number of reasons: first of all, the disproportionate representation of the electoral college votes benefits the Republican Party because the small states like Wyoming and Montana are largely rural, and therefore largely conservative--therefore disproportionately over representing republican voters. Furthermore, the Republican Party is conservative, meaning they want things to stay the same, so it would be going against their ideology to want the electoral college system to change. So although McConnell might be doing this partially to benefit the future of the Republican Party, it certainly makes him look a lot more reasonable and a good sport(compared to some of the other politicians at least).
Obviously, it is a good thing that the Republicans have finally acknowledged Biden’s win. However, the fact that it has taken this long reflects poorly on the state of American democracy. Over the last four years, the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that they are willing to eschew both governmental norms and the truth for the sake of political gain. It is worrying that Trump has gained so much power over the GOP that more than 120 Republicans in Congress signed on to a completely unfounded lawsuit that sought to disenfranchise voters in 4 states. Apparently, political polarization and party loyalty have gotten to the point where experienced politicians and lawmakers will completely disregard the principles of democracy for fear of upsetting the sitting President. Hopefully, Biden’s administration can bring back some normalcy to the American political scene.
I agree with Alex’s analysis that McConnell’s decision to acknowledge the election results is related to the Georgia runoffs. I don’t think McConnell actually doubted the election results, I think he just stayed quiet until it was clear that none of the legal challenges would succeed. He’s already gotten more than he could have hoped for under the Trump administration, with three conservative Supreme Court justices added to the court in just four years. Like Alex said, party unity is important in close elections, and given how important the Georgia runoffs are, it makes sense that McConnell is focusing on getting the party past the presidential election and onto the same page.
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