Dear Senator Tim Kaine,
I am writing to you to express my displeasure at your refusal to represent your constituents’ concerns, inasmuch as you did not contest the 2020 presidential election results from Missouri. I, along with a plurality of voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia, could not envision four more years of Trumpian insanity. I therefore cast my ballot for the Biden / Harris ticket. It was incomprehensible to me and 80+ million other people that a second term of Donald would be better than any alternative. Hell, I’d trust Kanye more than Trump; at least Yeezy admits he has mental health issues.
Because I feel so strongly that Trump is (was?) a dangerous, deranged, debaucherous, demagogic douche, how can I believe that other people would feel and vote differently? It just doesn’t compute. And yet you allowed the Missouri electors to unimpededly hand ten (10) college votes to the enemy. Politics is war, and there are only two sides – the Good (Biden / Harris, as Virginians know) or the Bad and Ugly (as the MO Foes seemingly selected). There’s no room for a Missouri compromise.
Senator Josh Hawley listened to the chatter from his crazy constituents (discounting the 1.2+ million that voted differently than he) and tried to capture the moment (without being captured) by standing up and objecting to the idea that the people of Pennsylvania could prefer a rival faction to their red state orange guy. This brave Show Me State leader did not need to be shown any actual proof of election fraud; facts are secondary to emotions in this age of lies. Rather than risk being branded a RINO by the guy who changes parties as frequently as he changes wives and now plans to start his own rival party*, Hawley raised a fist to the rabble rousers and later raised objections to the electors of rival states / commonwealths.
*[Sorry Melania, but at least the Dems won’t try to deport you.]
Shouldn’t we all expect the same of our “elected” leaders? That they will fight for our feelings, regardless of if we are downright wrong as demonstrated by dozens of court cases? Sure, you’ve sworn an oath to something called a “Constitution” and pledged allegiance to the flag, but should that trump Oath Keepers and confederate flag-waving mobs? Mr. Hawley thinks not.
I recognize that it is too late now to go back and change your position. The events of January 6th (and 7th) unfolded without objection to any of the states that voted red. Some would argue that in the grand scheme of things, it did not matter because the electoral college put Biden into power regardless. But this is myopic and I fear potentially Pyrrhic. Winning a closely contested battle (by a “landslide” 74 electoral college votes) is insufficient. In the zero-sum Game Of Politics today (GOP for short), your enemy must be vanquished. This is why so many redhats still shout for your old running mate to be locked up, years after the admitted witch hunt went nowhere (aside from a stunning defeat in 2016, but far be it from me to bring up that painful subject with you).
You can’t stand up before your colleagues and tell “Lyin’ Ted” that Texans really preferred Sleepy Joe because I and other Virginians said they should have. You can’t tell David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to suck it, because they already did and are nowhere to be found now. You can’t zip-tie and haul Hawley out of chamber to prevent him from doing something stupid; that moment passed and “muzzling” him only makes him say more stupid things anyway.
Voting to convict the con-man without any moral convictions in the impending impeachment effort will predictably follow party lines and prove meaningless but for the history books (which will likely not look kindly on the blind eyes being turned to the turncoat; though that assumes the GOP revisionists do not first rewrite this history or burn books in the future).
So what’s left? What’s right? If only there was a system of government whereby the will of the people elected our leaders. I believe the Greeks had a term for this. Democracy anyone?
End the electoral college. It should be bipartisan as the other guys already bemoan the idea of tuition-free college.
Thanks Tim,
Sincerely,
An Angry Constituent from your Commonwealth
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