We are all learning about some formalities that normally happen in the background of our lives every four years in the middle of the winter.

Amidst announcements concerning the incoming administration; Who is serving where? The head of the EPA? Who is the Attorney General? Will Biden immediately join the Paris Accord again? There are all the things we’d normally be discussing as a new president is about to be sworn in.

Little did we know that quite a few almost meaningless procedures go on in the background. The Electoral College vote is first brought to the House of Representatives where a vote is taken – one that normally doesn’t matter who has what majority – the person who won the Electoral College is passed by the House of Representatives. The certification of the vote is then taken to the Senate. The Senate doesn’t even have a vote (or at least we’ve yet to see an example of the Senate voting or having a role except … the head of the Senate, the Vice President completes the final step before Biden is sworn in. Pence will announce that Joe Biden has won and will be sworn in as president.

Ouch. He won’t be able to say it. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump … President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as president on January 20th. That is his job. If it is uncomfortable, he can look to Al Gore, who lost the most excruciating election in our generation – 150 Floridian votes – and Al Gore took it like a man and stood up and announced George Bush would be president.

But Pence has to know that it will kill his relationship with Trump. The symbolism alone will finish it, according to this story in the New York Times via Rawstory:

“The looming battle on Jan. 6 is likely to culminate in a messy and deeply divisive spectacle that could thrust Pence into the excruciating position of having to declare once and for all that Mr. Trump has indeed lost the election,” the Times reported.
“The fight promises to shape how Mr. Trump’s base views the election for years to come, and to pose yet another awkward test of allegiance for Republicans who have privately hoped that the Electoral College vote this week will be the final word on the election result.

“For the vice president, whom the Constitution assigns the task of tallying the results and declaring a winner, the episode could be particularly torturous, forcing him to balance his loyalty to Mr. Trump with his constitutional duties and considerations about his own political future.”

We don’t know what kind of spectacle there will be. At some point, some Republicans – we had one today – will start saying that their oath is to the constitution. Sure, in the Monkey House, some of the Trumpiest will scream, object, and it will amount to nothing because Nancy Pelosi will gavel them out. And thus that is the point where the awful truth comes for Pence, he’s out of the MAGA movement for life. He has to stand up and say the thing that Trump least wants to hear.

“Joseph R. Biden is to be sworn in as President on January 20th.”

Pence deserves to have that “excruciating” job, for all those times he kept his mouth shut and watched Trump work to divide and destroy this country. Now he will announce the man who will work to unite it.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak