Republicans weigh their options: join the Donald’s ‘coup’ or risk his vengeance?

The effort to overturn the election result is linked to the battle to succeed Trump and chart the GOP’s course.

Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell and US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump is marshalling his forces for one last effort to salvage his lame-duck presidency after demanding that Congress refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.

His attempt to mount a constitutional coup is certain to go down in flames this week, but he has succeeded in persuading a large number of Republican lawmakers to join his cause.

Trump has called for a huge “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington as a show of strength against members of Congress who believe it is their duty to confirm Biden’s win. Both events will take place on Wednesday, the day after the two run-off elections in Georgia that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Senate. The US courts have repeatedly rejected Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud.

Mike Pence, the vice-president, faces the unenviable task of presiding over the official count of the electoral college votes and announcing the winner to a joint session of the House and Senate – unless he bows to Trump’s pressure and bucks tradition. As a likely presidential contender in 2024, he has to decide whether his greater loyalty is to the US constitution or to the demands of a fickle president who has only 18 days left in office.

Vice-president Mike Pence, pictured with his chief of staff Mark Short, has been put in a tricky position. Picture: Getty Images

Biden has already won the electoral college vote by 306 to 232. “The certification has always been a formality,” said Tom Edmonds, a Republican consultant in Washington. “The vice-president is obliged to say Biden won, but Trump may turn on him. He has a following that transcends traditional politics and it will still be there after January 20.”

The effort to overturn the election result has become inextricably bound up in the battle to succeed Trump and the future political direction of the Grand Old Party (GOP).

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, had hoped the matter was settled when he formally acknowledged Biden as president-elect last month.

A source close to McConnell said his view of the political storm was: “’This too will pass,’ but what he meant was, ‘God, will this ever be over?’ ”

Josh Hawley, the ambitious 41-year-old senator for Missouri, infuriated moderate colleagues last week by offering to join as many as 140 House Republicans in objecting to Biden’s win. As a result, the matter has to be put to a vote in the Senate, forcing other presidential hopefuls, such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, to declare where they stand on the thorny issue of absolute fealty to Trump.

On a conference call with Republican senators, McConnell described the looming vote as the “most consequential I have ever cast” in his 36-year Senate career and said it would be treated as a “vote of conscience”.

Trump has made it clear that he expects senators to bend the knee to his demands or face the wrath of his supporters. He threatened last week to unleash a primary challenger in 2022 against John Thune, the Senate majority whip, after Thune said that a floor vote “would go down like a shot dog”.

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Obama, tweeted that Trump’s threat was: “A little message to @GOP members of Congress from the Demander-in-Chief: Join the coup or I will come after you later.”

Trump dashed back to the White House on New Year’s Eve from his resort at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, leaving members of his family to preside over the dollars 1,000-a- head festivities. It prompted speculation from some opponents that he was plotting a military strike against Iran, on the anniversary of the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, to engender an atmosphere of crisis surrounding the vote.

US President-Elect Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

With the unpredictable Trump, it is equally likely that he was still fuming about his wife Melania’s lavish redecorating efforts at Mar-a-Lago – he reportedly ordered the white marble and dark wood to be ripped out – or that he was determined to be in Washington to lead the resistance to Biden’s victory.

The showdown with Congress on Wednesday represents Trump’s last stand against electoral reality. After that, there is nothing he can do to prevent Biden’s inauguration short of imposing martial law. The US military has vowed not to interfere in the democratic process.

There were two unmistakeable signs last week that his power as president is waning after Republican senators joined forces with the Democrats to override his veto of a defence bill and also obstructed his demand to increase Covid-19 stimulus payments for people from dollars 600 to dollars 2,000.

Yet Trump still retains the ability to torment his party. Close advisers are divided over whether he genuinely intends to run for president in 2024 but agree that he will keep everybody guessing until the last moment. He has amassed a formidable war chest that can be used to fund his own White House campaign or to secure his status as Republican kingmaker.

First daughter Ivanka has also been dropping hints about her political future. Her ability to draw a crowd is second only to her father’s and a simple “heart” emoji in response to a tweet celebrating the anniversary of Iowa’s founding was enough to prompt speculation that she is courting all-important caucus voters in the state.

Others have suggested she may challenge Rubio for his Florida senate seat, although a senior Trump adviser cautioned that she was considered “too liberal” by the Republican base.

Hawley’s decision to challenge Biden’s victory is seen as a power move to boost his claim to inherit Trump’s mantle. As the youngest Republican senator, he will almost certainly seek to run for the White House in 2024, but can afford to wait for a few more years if Trump enters the field. Senator Mitt Romney, who stood for president in 2012, described Hawley’s ploy as “ambition pointing a gun at the head of democracy”.

Hawley represents the red state of Missouri but has a blue-chip background. The son of a banker, he went to private school before graduating from Stanford and attending Yale law school. He won a coveted place in his twenties as the John Colet teaching fellow at St Paul’s School in west London, where he taught history for a year in exchange for board and lodging.

Peter Wehner, a former White House adviser under George W Bush, slammed Hawley in The Atlantic magazine, claiming that as a constitutional lawyer he ought to know better than to pretend Trump’s “lie” about electoral fraud was “true”.

“It is one thing for Hawley to position himself as a populist ... quite another for him to knowingly engage in civic vandalism and, in ostentatiously unpatriotic ways, undermine established norms and safeguards.”

The question for Republicans is whether Trumpism without Trump can succeed in being an electoral force or whether their behaviour in the run-up to Biden’s inauguration will come to be seen as an embarrassing interlude in the history of a formidable party.

The Times