House Democrats’ Plot To Stage ‘Insurrection’ After Trump Victory Is Revealed
A possible insurrection is brewing on Capitol Hill as Democrats fret over how or whether to accept the results of the 2024 election if President Donald Trump is declared the winner.
Despite offering a slew of partisan or bipartisan bills to ostensibly strengthen democracy under President Joe Biden, Democrats are going out on a limb, according to Axios, telling confidants they need to fight fire with fire after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) hedged on whether he would certify a Kamala Harris victory. That charge is being led by Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the powerful House Oversight Committee who told the outlet he “definitely” isn’t assuming that a Trump win will be legitimate. If Trump “won a free, fair and honest election, then we would obviously accept it,” he cautioned. However, the Maryland Democrat pointed to several legal challenges the Trump campaign has undertaken in battleground states or districts. Trump, he said, “is doing whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we’re talking about manipulating electoral college counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments.”
Longtime Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) echoed those concerns. “I don’t know what kind of shenanigans he is planning,” she told Axios, adding: “We would have to, in any election … make sure that all the rules have been followed.” Reporter Andrew Solender noted that Schakowsky carries the ignominious badge of voting against certifying the results of the 2004 presidential election when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. She later followed up with Soldender in a statement, saying she is “proud to … join all my Democratic colleagues in certifying the 2020 election” and looks forward to “doing the same in January 2025.”
Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA), a scion of the establishment who objected to Trump’s electors in 2017, said he would accept a second Trump victory “assuming everything goes the way we expect it to.” He added, “We have to see how it all happens. My expectation is that we would.”
Raskin, Schakowsky, and McGovern all take their cues from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) who effectively blessed their election denialism in a statement of his own. “House Democrats are going to do everything necessary to … ensure that the winner of the presidential election is certified on January 6th without drama or consequences,” Jeffries said at a September press conference. House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-NY), one of Jeffries’s top deputies, has made similar statements on other occasions.
Most observers believe Democrats’ reactions to a Trump win would mirror those in January 2017 when a cohort of congressmen objected to the Republican’s electors. Half a dozen Democrats filed objections to 10 of Trump’s state electors but were unable to get the backing of a U.S. Senator or force any votes. In January 2021, a majority of House Republicans voted to object to Joe Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. “Democrats don’t engage in election fraud and election fabrication,” Rep. Raskin said at the time.
