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Approaching the Dec. 8 ballot-certification deadline, the 2020 election results are becoming clearer or muddier, depending on your political leanings, and the infighting in the Republican Party has burst into flame on Twitter. The news that Georgia officially certified its vote count despite the Trump campaign's request for a second recount may be an irreparable blow to the Trump Team’s questioning of the state’s presidential tally.
Infighting Begins
Judge Matthew Brann
The powder keg smoldered first in Pennsylvania, where U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann rejected the Trump campaign's request to have seven million ballots invalidated over claims of unequal ballot-curing opportunities. Brann is a Republican and member of the Federalist Society, one of the most influential legal groups associated with judicial interpretation based on textualism and originalism. Because of the campaign's inability to overturn Biden's lead in Pennsylvania, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) congratulated Biden on Twitter for his likely victory. Some conservatives on Twitter immediately dogpiled on Toomey for the hasty admission of defeat, rightly arguing that the state's vote has not been certified but failing to explain how Trump could make up the vote gap.
On another front, some Trump supporters on Twitter laid into Brann for his decision to dismiss the major lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania without prejudice. The Trump campaign complained that Brann was appointed by Obama and facetiously thanked him for expediting its plan to appeal the case up to the Supreme Court. At the same time, influential conservative Mark Levin excoriated "establishment" GOP members on Twitter for calling on the Trump campaign to present genuine evidence of widespread voter fraud. Although recounts in states like Georgia showed thousands of votes overlooked from the original tally, any evidence of significant fraud has not been proven through litigation.
The Trump Coalition or Establishment?
It is inarguable that the coalition Trump has built over the last five years, since his campaign's launch in 2015, has become a political force with which to be reckoned in the future. Republicans saw major success in House, Senate, and state legislature races this election cycle, despite the millions pumped into state-level races by Democratic donors. This seemed to spell success for the Republican Party but not necessarily for the president. Moderate Republicans calling on Trump to concede and forfeit what they see as unrealistic hopes for victory through the judicial system fail to understand a main driving factor in the vibrant Trump coalition: the willingness to fight until the end. A lot of Republicans have become tired of their politicians admitting loss and cowering in the face of the radical left's accusations of racism, sexism, and voter suppression. That’s why so many struck back in 2016 and elected Trump, a fighter.
Twitter has been the battlefield for the brewing war between mainstream Republicans and prominent powers in Trump's coalition, causing focus on left-wing Twitter infighting over Biden's apparent snub of Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for his Cabinet to diffuse. As some Republican Party legislative leaders shy away from full-throated support of the Trump campaign lawsuits, a Twitter reckoning may explode if any Republican defeatists come forward before the Electoral College's vote tallies are made public.
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