The end began slowly to take place over many days and only gradually became more and more sure and resistance to it became more desperate, more extreme, more criminal, and more fantastical as it gradually grew nearer.
By Saturday, December 5, the without-evidence, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes fanatic legal claims had mostly failed. Trump phoned Georgia’s governor who had already some days previously personally signed off on the vote in Georgia (which had shown Biden as the winner). After three electoral recounts, including one by hand, Trump pressured him to overturn the vote in Georgia. He asked Governor Kemp (R) in the telephone conversation to call a special session of the Georgia State Legislature to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia and appoint Republican electors for Georgia, thereby disenfranchising millions of Georgia voters. Several networks carried Trump’s call as a line item report. destroy American democracy and establish Trump as dictator for life
On Sunday evening, Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan (R) gave an interview on CNN’s State of the Union during which he said “he ‘absolutely’ thought that Kemp would not accede to Trump’s demand that he persuade the state legislature to appoint electors who would override the popular vote and nullify Biden’s victory in the state.”[1] Later that evening Kemp and Duncan issued a joint statement in response to Trump’s call for a special session of the legislature to override Biden’s victory saying that “doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law.”[2] Even in the face of this declaration, President Trump continued to increase the pressure. Governor Kemp and Georgia continued to resist.
There begins to be a thin ray of light visible at the end of this long dark tunnel of resistance—Donald Trump’s and Republican party leadership’s effort (in Washington) to cancel President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive electoral victory on November 3 by engineering a coup d’état. If ever there was a criminal act, destroying American democracy and establishing Trump as dictator for life would certainly be one.
The founders are with us:
“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.” – Alexander Hamilton, 1774
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1776
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1800
John Jay
[1] Felicia Sommez, “Georgia Leaders Rebuff Trump’s Call for Special Session to Overturn Election Results,” December 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brian-kemp-trump-election-results/2020/12/06/4c5db908-37d4-11eb-9276-ae0ca72729be_story.html.
[2] Ibid.