Donald Trump Can Still Protest the Election. Here’s How.
By: Yash Rajpal
Tags: Elections, Politics, Trump, Congress, Republican Party

Donald Trump’s campaign, led by Rudy Giuliani and his slate of lawyers, have unsuccessfully brought case after case to state courts in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin, all with false hope of overturning the election results in those states. Even Trump’s own appointed Supreme Court justices voted against the GOP’s bids from Pennsylvania and Texas to challenge ballot counts across the United States.

Through all of this, the president has been adamant that there was rampant voter fraud and that the Democrats were behind it. And, as the court system is supposed to do without any corroborating evidence, barely any of Trump’s lawsuits have been successful.

On Monday, electors across America will submit their votes to the electoral college, which will seal Joe Biden’s win. But some Trump supporters still plan to carry out the president’s quest to protest the returns.

According to the Electoral Act of 1877, one senator and one representative can agree to file an objection to a state’s electoral result. After deliberations, if both the House and the Senate agree, that state’s election results can be overturned. Obviously, with a Democratic majority in the House and an extremely slim Republican majority in the Senate, the chances of an objection actually being sustained is quite literally zero. But Representative Mo Brooks (AL-5), notably without an ally in the Senate, plans to bring an objection to the floor.

It seems like a lost cause, right? In all reality, it is. But what I find interesting is what the vote could mean for the Republican party.

A Potential Republican Objection to the Election

If Mo Brooks does indeed get a United States senator to bring an objection with him to the floor in Congress, both the House and Senate will have to vote on the objection. Although this will not pass, I’m personally interested to see who votes to sustain the objection.

Donald Trump’s presidency, to the chagrin of many Republicans, has been tainted by his firings of notable aides and officials simply because of what he sees as a lack of loyalty. Funnily enough, he brought up firing Bill Barr this past week simply because he refused to confirm the president’s false claims of voter fraud. Nonetheless, if certain Trump allies in the Senate choose to vote against the objection, it’s likely that Trump will paint them as liberal sellouts.

It’s quite similar to what happened with the Texas case last week. While many House Republicans knew the case would likely fail, over one-hundred officially put their support behind the case. Undoubtedly, if Trump remains as the leader of the Republican party, that support will be crucial.

And the potential vote on the floor will, despite its already decided fate, be momentous, having only occurred a few times in United States history. It’ll also outline how divided this country is.

What’s Next for Donald Trump?

If Donald Trump wants to save face and keep his influence strong within the Republican party and around the country, he has to recover what could be one of the most embarrassing losses in the history of the United States. Of course, his most fervent supporters are unabashed by the loss. Convinced of voter fraud and Democratic cheating, they still believe that Trump won the election by a huge margin, and a number of them are already clamoring for his sons and daughters to run in the future.

But he’ll likely protest the election up until inauguration day itself. In fact, some have floated the idea of Trump announcing his 2024 campaign during Joe Biden’s inauguration.

However, I don’t see his influence in the Republican party lasting as long as people think. And if precedent is correct, that will certainly remain the case.

Donald Trump’s four years in office, while touted as some of the best for Republicans, will end amidst a worldwide pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. After failing to gain the plurality of Americans’ votes twice, he’s not exactly a popular figure in the United States. Republicans can put up far better candidates than him, and despite his undoubtedly strong skill of channeling anger towards the opposition and riling up support, his time out of the spotlight could possibly take him out of politics altogether.

And here’s the kicker: politics is always changing, while Trump never does. As Trump leaves Washington, he’ll realize the legacy of his presidency — if he had any capacity for widespread support across America, he wouldn’t be leaving the White House at all. It comes back to his political instincts. When the country is doing well, his instinct is to brag about its success. When things are going less well, he’ll continue to brag about past success. In the grand scheme of things, the pandemic warranted a change in Trump’s fiery method of politics — his failure to do so eventually resulted in his political demise.