Read on Twitter
Let's talk about what McConnell said yesterday. In the narrowest sense, he's right: 45 does have the right to see this process through, and he is within his rights to seek the protection of the courts. But...
Just because he has the right to do something, doesn't mean he should. This is called forbearance, and it is critical to a functioning government.
Forbearance means, for example, that just because you can launch a nuclear weapon, you don't do it. You recognize that the world is better off as a whole if you do not go nuclear.
In government, forbearance means that just because you can exercise a right, you sometimes choose not to because you want to preserve the integrity of the whole. You recognize that a functioning government is more important than a single victory.
Under McConnell, the GOP has largely abandoned forbearance, in favor of a win-at-all-costs survival strategy. The story of the Supreme Court from Merrick Garland until today is one in which the GOP gave up on forbearance.
Forbearance vanishes when you see the other side as an enemy that will destroy you, rather than people with different ideas about how to achieve shared goals.
Forbearance requires both acting in good faith and accepting that the other side is also acting in good faith.
McConnell poo-poo'd the calls for good faith yesterday, saying "these are the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election." But he knows that's a lie.
Of course there were people on the left who said "not my president," but the *actual president* of the United States, Barack Obama, began the orderly and responsible transition process immediately after the election.
Here's 44 and 45 in the White House 2 days after the election. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHX91htlzd3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
These are two men who do not like each other, do not respect each other. Yet for the good of the country, 44 chose to act in good faith and begin the transition.
*This* is the good faith the Dems are asking for now. Not kind words. Not lack of insults. Not "cheerfulness." Simply the good faith to put the interests of the nation ahead of the interests of the party.
"Peaceful transition of power" doesn't simply mean that we change leaders without violence. It means that we respect the *power* and actually *transfer* it. This is not the same as transferring *title*. To fight this transition now is to undermine the power, not transfer it.
So what's going on with McConnell and the GOP? Do they really believe that the Dems are an enemy who are out to destroy them?
Maybe. Maybe McConnell is willing to go along because he knows that *his* power rests on the results of the upcoming run offs in GA. He knows that his best tactic is to mobilize his base—and this fight will do that.
But it will do more than that: in an attempt to keep power for himself and the GOP, he's putting party ahead of country. He's willing to jeopardize the stability of our nation, the operation of our government, and the safety of our nation in order to do it.
This is McConnell. Contempt for forbearance. Embrace of bad faith. Demonization of the other side. Failure to recognize the shared interests the people of this nation have in a functioning federal government. /end
