Interesting and yet typically a GOP hypocritical stunt
reported on here from The Hill with this headline:
“U.S. election deniers promote
democracy abroad defies reason”
Introduction: Forty years ago on June 8, 1982, in a speech to the British parliament President Ronald W. Reagan (R-CA) heralded the role that established democracies should play in assisting countries moving from authoritarianism toward democracy. Critics questioned the sincerity of this appeal given U.S. support to dictators simply because they identified as anti-communists.
Nonetheless,
there was no doubt that Reagan accepted the fundamental premise of U.S.
democracy as: “Political power flows through elections and the loser must
accept the results if the system is to be sustained.”
Following Reagan’s speech, Congress funded the creation of several institutions, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to support efforts to establish democracy.
Representatives of these organizations, in their work overseas,
have often found themselves having to explain idiosyncrasies of the U.S.
system such as the Electoral College (EC);
gerrymandering of districts; the oversized role of money in U.S. electoral
politics; and, the fact that chief election officers themselves are selected
through partisan elections.
Nonetheless, drawing on more than 200 years of peaceful
transitions from George Washington onward, democracy promoters could cite the
reality that election losers always accepted the results, no matter how
disappointing.
More from the Hill
story: Today we witness and endure Trump, who cannot concede his loss
to Joe Biden in the 2020 election and along with his “Big Lie” and many Republicans
in tow who still preach the “Big Lie” lie (e.g., in the photo above).
Trump not only refused to
accept the result, even after numerous court challenges were repeatedly rejected (over 62 to date), but he sought to
fabricate a narrative of fraud, convince state legislatures to falsify election results, and worst of all, he called
supporters into the D.C. streets to prevent the vice president and members of
Congress from performing their constitutional duties on January 6.
If Trump’s actions had taken place in another country,
democracy promotion organizations (like NED) would have denounced them as
violating fundamental and commonly accepted international norms of democratic
practice.
Some suggest NED board members are capable of separating their partisan perspectives from their commitment to support democracy abroad.
Others
say organizations need individuals from across the political spectrum to
project bipartisan support for their work. Taking action against board members
based on their political orientations would torpedo their carefully cultivated
bipartisan image and, if budget cuts are made, could undermine global
pro-democracy efforts. Thus, our Democracy is in a serious crisis mode right
now.
Given this experience, there are concerns that efforts to advance democracy abroad may be compromised by board members of publicly-funded U.S. democracy promotion organizations who continue to deny the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. That concern is exacerbated by the presence of an active promoter of Trumps “Big Lie” sitting on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
That NED board
member is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) (for the record my Rep. in congress) not
only voted against the certification of the EC to confirm Joe
Biden as President, but who has also become a leading promoter of other
debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election still pushed by
Trump.
Concerned NED staff raised the seeming incompatibility of Stefanik serving as a democracy promoter abroad while being associated with the “Big Lie” at home.
Yet this year, the NED board renewed Stefanik for another term.
My insert: I closely follow Ms. Stefanik’s voting record and
public statements and speeches and such. Over the years that all convinces me
that she is and will always will be a rabid flip-flopping partisan for her own
advancement as a showboating, grandstanding, PR seeker and not much else
despite her speeches and press releases, Her actions truly do speak louder than
her staged clever rhetoric.
It is wise at this point in our history as DOJ ponders (or
not) whether to indict and press charges against Trump for his many crimes
related the January 6 insurrection that to recall the words of John Stuart Mill who said in 1867: “Bad men
need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and
do nothing.”
My 2 Cents: As I’ve said for a very long time and more now more so since a growing number of prominent Republicans, seen here from Business Insider; here also from Business Insider; here from the NY Times; and here from Sen. Mitt Romney (all renowned Republicans and many legal experts) say the evidence is overwhelming and DOJ indictment of Trump is the only solution to seeing justice preserved and to profess again as Theodore Roosevelt said in his address to Congress in 1903:
Related is my earlier post here.
Thanks for stopping by.
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