To most people, it probably wasn’t a shock when outgoing president Donald Trump refused to take part in a peaceful transition of power. Instead, since losing to Joe Biden he’s done very little but cry baseless charges of voter fraud, file dozens of failed lawsuits, have his legal team offer multiple memorably bumbling pressers and hearings, and generally undermine the country’s electoral process. And throughout it all the majority of the Republican party in both the House and the Senate has said nothing, at least not publicly. That changed on Monday when a single Republican representative expressed his disgust, over a month after Biden won, and about 2 ½ weeks after he was due to retire anyway.
That politician is Paul Mitchell, a two-term Representative for Michigan, one of the many states that flipped blue for Biden. As per The New York Times, he voted for Trump this year, and yet his behavior since Election Day has been such that it’s inspired him to leave the party altogether. He’ll spend the rest of his time in congress as an independent.
Mitchell expressed his furor in a letter to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, which was made available to various news outlets. After admitting that Trump, like any president, was entitled to request recounts, he assailed him and his legal team for failing to provide adequate — or, really, any — evidence of any wrongdoing in this year’s election process.
“It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third- world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote,” Mitchell wrote. “Further, it is unacceptable for the president to attack the Supreme Court of the United States because its judges, both liberal and conservative, did not rule with his side or that ‘the Court failed him.’ It was our Founding Fathers’ objective to insulate the Supreme Court from such blatant political motivations.”
Mitchell’s about-face is, on its face, a big deal. He admitted to voting in favor of Trump’s policies 95 percent of the time. That said, he also admits that he “expressed strong concerns” about some of the president’s rhetoric and actions, including his response to the Charlottesville tragedy and the racist and xenophobic comments by both him and his colleagues during Trump’s reign.
A closer look, though, reveals that this may not be quite the profile in courage it at first seems. Mitchell’s letter was sent on the day the Electoral College formally named Biden the 46th president, when Trump’s dismissal was all but official. Besides, the NYT reports he had already planned to retire from his position at the end of this year. And he’s reportedly one of the wealthiest members of Congress, which is saying something. In other words, he’s largely inoculated from any severe blowback over turning his back on Trump.
Still, perhaps Mitchell’s decision will inspire others to follow suit. At least when the coast is really, super clear.
(Via NYT)