Status: 05.01.2022 5:51 a.m.
Most of the US Republicans will continue to follow ex-President Trump without a doubt – in the dispute over the outcome of the 2020 election, in coming to terms with the storm on the Capitol. This can have consequences for upcoming elections.
Donald Trump does not make a public appearance these days without taking out the very big cutlery: He not only narrowly won the presidential election of 2020, but even landslide, Trump continually hammers his supporters into.
The facts that Biden got 306 electors in the election and Trump only 232, that Biden had received seven million more votes than Trump: These undeniable facts have never played a role among the fanatical fans of the person who was voted out.
Documentary in the First: Assault on the Capitol
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of supporters of the then US President Donald Trump forcibly entered the seat of the US Congress in Washington. The documentary “Storming the Capitol” by award-winning author and director Jamie Roberts can be seen on January 6, 2022 at 10.15 pm and on January 7, 2022 at 1.30 am on Das Erste.
Few disagree
But even in Trump’s party, there are only very few cross-wing members who publicly contradict the assertion of the injured loser. It is just insane that so many people believe in a different reality, says Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, with a shake of his head.
Hogan is what Trump likes to call a “RINO”, a “republican in name only”, a pseudo-republican. To rid the party of such people has been Trump’s mission since he was voted out of office. Just recently, Trump urged his fellow party members in Georgia to kick out “weak” Republicans; in other words, those who do not support the false assertion of alleged electoral fraud.
Are Trump opponents being pushed aside?
This campaign worries electoral law expert and law professor Richard L. Hasen of the University of California. He fears that those Republicans who distanced themselves from Trump last year will now be systematically replaced by Trump loyalists in the primaries that decide who will run for the Republicans in the November congressional elections.
Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Wyoming, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and thus old Republican nobility, has to worry. Cheney is one of only two Republicans to sit on the Committee of Inquiry into the Assault on the Capitol.
Trump has long refused to put a stop to the mob at the Capitol, despite the urging of his daughter Ivanka, Cheney told TV broadcaster ABC on Sunday. Cheney’s party friends have already punished her for sentences like this: her own state association in Wyoming declared her “no longer part of the party” in November – a quasi-noise abuse. Everyone who dares to criticize Trump and his disinformation campaign must currently expect this.
Is a reform of the electoral law still conceivable?
Professor Hasen hopes that in the end there will still be responsible Republicans who will contradict Trump and work with the Democrats to initiate an electoral reform: This would make it impossible at best for willful doubts about an election result can be stirred up.
For the time being, however, the situation remains extremely dangerous, says Hasen: “Anyone who thinks the last election is illegal could come up with the idea of cheating in the next election,” he fears.
The storming of the Capitol has shown in an oppressive way that attempted election manipulation can turn into violence. And a recent poll by the Washington Post shows that this can happen again at any time: 34 percent of all respondents said that the use of force against their own government was sometimes justified.