Republicans Can Agree to Disagree Over Democracy
Less than six hours after rioters forced legislators to stop their debate over certifying the electors from Arizona on January 6, senators were back on the floor again. The insurrection failed to stop Congress from playing its constitutional role in certifying Joe Biden as the next president.
That may be a metaphor for the resilience of American institutions under assault, but the Senate’s quick return to business also shows that the antidemocratic attitudes of the protesters were nothing new to the chamber. Indeed, the debate over whether to accept the outcome of a presidential election was only happening at the Capitol because a faction of the Republican Party had already embraced the same grievances as the rioters.
In , Tom Nichols of lawmakers the “sedition caucus.” It lost on January 6, but its members are not going away. The question is what form their persistence will take. Are they the Republican Party’s future, or will they have to or that Donald Trump reportedly wants to found?
