President Donald Trump‘s son, Eric Trump, announced on Tuesday that he will take political action against all Republican lawmakers who do not support his father‘s conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. Eric tweeted on Tuesday night that “will personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator / Congressman who doesn’t stand up against this fraud – they will be primaried in their next election and they will lose.”
Eric’s post got one of the now-familiar “disputed” warnings from Twitter — likely because he referred to the 2020 election as a “fraud” when no evidence of that exists. Eric wants Republicans in the U.S. Congress to challenge the election results on Wednesday, when both chambers will vote to certify the Electoral College’s votes. So far, 13 Republican senators and 140 Republican House reps have said that they will do so, but the prospect is not popular with Republicans in general.
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I will personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator / Congressman who doesn’t stand up against this fraud – they will be primaried in their next election and they will lose.
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) January 6, 2021
Commenters teased Eric about his threat, with some questioning whether he meant to endorse democrats in those congressional races just to see the Republicans he dislikes lose. Others poked fun at his work ethic, and what they saw as a naive belief that politics could be that easy.
“Eric, buddy, you’ve never worked a day in your life and we all know you’re not starting now,” one person wrote. Another added: “Just a little extortion via Twitter… what else is new when it comes to a Trump?”
The Trump campaign has now pursued dozens of recounts, audits, investigations and lawsuits all over the country, all without turning up any evidence of widespread voter fraud or election tampering. The Trump campaign would need to overturn the results in several large states — many of which were lost by a huge margin — to actually win the election at this point. The chances of such findings are astronomically small, to the point that they are not worth considering.
Still, Trump, his family and his supporters continue to speak as if their conspiracy theories are a foregone conclusion, which analysts fear will do lasting damage to the public faith in the United States’ electoral system. Nevertheless, 13 Republican senators, including prominent leaders like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, have vowed to contest the election results on Wednesday.
These efforts have no chance of changing the election outcome, and will only create circuitous work for Congress to keep track of. Still, pundits say that they will legitimize inflammatory rhetoric like that spread by Eric, and widen the divide between American voters. President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021.
