Washington, DC – There are two scenarios here – one when you look at the crystal clear factual details of the 2020 presidential election, and the flip side is incumbent President Donald Trump’s perspective.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidential election after the electoral college formally confirmed Biden’s victory with 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232.
President Trump still refuses to concede, and his tweets of unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud are making him a laughing stock.
On the Senate floor, McConnell said he had hoped for a “different result” but after the electoral college declared Biden the winner, he decided “to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.”
Also congratulating his fellow senator and Biden’s running-mate, Kamala Harris, McConnell said: “All Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president-elect for the very first time.”
Welcoming McConnell’s comments, Harris spoke on American TV: “It would have been better if it were earlier but it happened, and that’s what’s most important. Let’s move forward. And where we can find common purpose and common ground, let’s do that.”
First Lady Melania Trump, and close family members including Trump’s adult children have been cited in media reports as urging Trump to change his stance.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also urged Trump to “end his term with a modicum of grace and dignity”. “For the sake of our democracy, for the sake of peaceful transition of power, he should stop the shenanigans, stop the misrepresentations and acknowledge that Joe Biden will be our next president,” he said.
Standing firm on his false convictions of voter fraud and a miracle that will flip the election results to his favor, but without offering evidence, Trump tweeted on December 15 that “tremendous evidence” of voter fraud was “pouring in.”
Later the same day, when asked if Trump recognised Biden as president-elect, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told a press conference the president was still involved in ongoing litigation related to the election.
With McConnell’s comments affirming Biden’s position, there are good chances that other Republican members of Congress will come out to endorse the election results to allow the presidential transition process to unroll in a more traditional manner.
McConnell’s words might push him into a growing list of Republicans like Mitt Romney whom Trump labels RINO (Republicans in Name Only). Lest Trump forgets that on January 20, as he becomes ex-president, McConnell will become the senior most Republican leader in the party.
The political scenario will unfold as planned in a democratic USA but the question that now looms is where is the Republican Party heading?