Why are Missouri and Kansas senators still afraid to say it? Joe Biden won the election
Hours after President Donald Trump finally allowed — and what a sad verb that is in this context — the federal government to let President-elect Joe Biden begin his transition, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran sent out a newsletter to constituents “updating” them with a weak, meek acknowledgment that we still live in a democracy. George Washington stepped down for this?
“Update on the General Election: In America, elections are sacred — the foundation of democratic government,” Moran’s newsletter said. “It is important that the election results be accurate. President Trump has the right to request recounts and can utilize the courts to determine the integrity of the election.”
We have known for weeks that these recounts, based on false claims of nonexistent fraud, would serve no purpose other than to placate the sorest loser in American history. Every Republican in Washington knows that Trump’s refusal to concede has weakened not only our incoming president but our country as a whole, delaying as it has crucial national security and public health briefings. On both fronts, American lives are on the line, but our elected representatives either don’t care or are too afraid to show that they do.
“That process will soon be completed,” Moran said of the recount and court challenges that are effectively already over, “and we must all respect the results of a free and fair election. We cannot afford to spend the next four years divided over who won the election or denying the legitimacy of the president as was the case for President Trump throughout his presidency.”
This, too, is shocking revisionism. When Hillary Clinton lost narrowly to Trump four years ago, she immediately conceded and told her supporters this: “I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don’t just respect that, we cherish it.”
Some more than others, as it turns out. Trump has yet to say any such thing, and maybe never will.
It’s more surprising that Moran, too, is falsely suggesting that the result of this year’s presidential election is still up in the air. “In the meantime,” he wrote, “the normal national security briefings and transition courtesies should be granted.” Such magnanimity.
Yet even Moran’s modest and much delayed inching in the right direction still makes him the least timid of the U.S. senators from Kansas and Missouri.
On Sunday night, journalist Carl Bernstein named 21 Republican senators who he said have privately but repeatedly expressed “extreme contempt” for Trump, including Moran, retiring Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley was not on the list.
Roberts used to be willing to say what he thought, but that was years ago, and with only weeks left before retirement, this final show of fearfulness will be his legacy now.
Recently, Roberts said in an interview that Biden would probably become president, and that he hoped civility would return to public life. You know what would have made that more likely? Admitting that the election is over and that Biden is the president-elect.
“With few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct — including undermining and discrediting the U.S. electoral system,” Bernstein said of GOP officeholders. With Bob Woodward — who was also enabling and silent on Trump’s COVID-19 perfidy, until his recent book came out — Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal that drove President Richard Nixon from office.
Yet Bernstein said he is “much more concerned” now than at the end of Watergate because “Nixon left — Republicans convinced him to go, and he did.”
Even now, the president is promising to keep fighting, and most Republicans are staring at their shoes.
Blunt denied privately trashing the president, while maybe from force of habit, Moran and Roberts said nothing. “From the day I stood beside President Trump as he was sworn in as president, he and I have had a good relationship,” Blunt said in a statement. “He has worked effectively with the Senate to enact significant accomplishments as president.”
Moran told Politico last week that he would not comment on the results of the presidential election until he’d had time to get his “thoughts cleared on a piece of paper and in my brain.”
That it took weeks for him to say that we should acknowledge the rightful winner, whoever that may be, is an embarrassment. And that he still can’t bring himself to say that person’s name is a public disservice.