It took far too long. But McConnell finally acknowledges Biden victory.
The Electoral College results are in, affirming Joe Biden as president. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated him, along with most every other world leader.
The day after Putin, the senior statesman of the Senate, Kentucky’s own Mitch McConnell, finally deigned to acknowledge Biden as president-elect.
“The Electoral College has spoken,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “So today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.”
His reluctance to do so for the past month, of course, has helped sustain Trump and his supporters into a kind of fever dream of denial and fantasy over who really won. That uncertainty meant some state’s electors had to meet in secret because of threats of violence.
Better late than never. The signs were in the air last week when under what we assume is McConnell’s leadership, the entire Kentucky Congressional delegation, along with Attorney General Daniel Cameron, declined to sign on to on to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ludicrous lawsuit to overturn the results of the presidential election. It garnered a rare word of praise from Kentucky’s only Democrat, John Yarmuth.
“Seems ludicrous to applaud my fellow members of the KY Delegation for not joining 106 of their GOP colleagues in sedition, but I do,” he tweeted on Friday. “There’s a low bar for high praise in 2020.”
It’s possible they had good sense; Paxton, after all, is under indictment. He’s a bad enough guy that uber Republican Blake Brickman, Gov. Matt Bevin’s former ardent chief watchdog, joined a whistleblower suit against Paxton for possible criminal activity.
But more likely is that Kentucky Godfather Mitch McConnell told the most loyal enablers, like U.S. Rep. Jamie Comer, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and Cameron to stand down. As former political columnist John David Dyche noted on Twitter, Rep. Hal Rogers and Brett Guthrie had the sense to see that committing treason against the United States wouldn’t play well in the long run.
But that is still a low bar. Because Kentucky always makes political headlines for the wrong reasons, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, is now being mentioned as a possible Senator who would support a House member challenging a state’s results.
McConnell’s acquiesence will help, but it certainly won’t end the far right delusions. To Trump supporters: Don’t you think that if Bill Barr could have found election fraud, he would have used it to bolster Trump’s case? Because he couldn’t, he’s getting fired. At least he has a shred of dignity left.
Trump supporters believe his lunatic claims of widespread fraud because they always believe him despite a complete lack of evidence. Even the U.S. Supreme Court shut him down.
They have also believed him, says University of Kentucky elections expert Josh Douglas, because “people like Mitch McConnell did not shut it down immediately. He’s an elder statesman and party leader, and he could shut this down.
“The losing party need to accept defeat,” Douglas said. “That’s what sustains a peaceful transfer of power so we continue to uphold the ideals of democratic norms.”
Axios reported later Tuesday that McConnell had urged fellow Republicans not to object to the Jan. 6 certification in Congress.
McConnell finally recognized this silly game had been played for long enough. It will still cause real problems to our democracy. It is time for McConnell to acknowledge what he and everyone around him already knows because our democracy is more important than his political power.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 9:22 AM.
