Stauber’s cowardice

During his five years as Minnesota’s Eighth District Congressman, no one could possibly mistake Pete Stauber as a leader. He is a follower, a minion, who does what he’s told, and that sad reality was made all the more apparent by his recent endorsement of former President Donald Trump in his bid to recapture the White House.
Consider for a moment what Stauber’s endorsement says, not about Trump, but about Stauber himself. Stauber is a man who witnessed firsthand the assault on our nation’s capitol building three years ago by a mob of the misled, who’d been fed lies about a stolen election by Donald Trump. Stauber is well aware that the man he has just endorsed for president incited that mob to attack Congress in hopes of stopping the counting of the electoral votes that would confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Donald Trump was the first president in American history to refuse the peaceful transfer of power, even though he was well aware he had lost the election. His own White House and campaign legal and political advisors had told him so. Recounts in states like Arizona and Georgia had told him so. The attorney general had told him so. The courts had told him so. Even the CEO of the company Trump hired to prove election fraud had told him so after reviewing the election results.
Rather than concede, Trump lied and conspired with others to violate his oath of office and undermine the U.S. Constitution to remain in power. As has been revealed through legal filings and numerous guilty pleas by his accomplices, Donald Trump worked to create false slates of electors which he submitted to Congress and then pressured Vice President Mike Pence to illegally substitute those fake electors for the real ones certified by the states. These aren’t politically motivated allegations, hatched by the Biden administration. These are facts, revealed in most cases by Trump’s own staff about the events leading up to the attack on Washington.
Pete Stauber knows all this. He is also well aware that Trump plans to do it all over again should he ever, somehow, regain the presidency. Stauber is well aware that Trump says he plans to use the presidency to pardon those who attacked the capitol, including those who attacked police, and to seek retribution against his perceived political enemies, including summary execution of military men who took steps to block a Trump coup. Stauber doesn’t just tolerate Trump’s Big Lie, and these violent and hateful words, illegal actions, and violations of the Constitution. He doesn’t just look the other way. He endorses it. All of it, because when you get in bed with Donald Trump, you end up carrying all his baggage.
Stauber is well aware that Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts from four different jurisdictions. He is well aware that Trump has already been found guilty of fraud, sexual assault, and defamation, and he recognizes full well that if Donald Trump regains the White House, he likely won’t relinquish it the next time, particularly if doing so meant he could, again, face prosecution and imprisonment. He won’t care that the Constitution limits a president to two terms. Trump intends to be the next Vladimir Putin and he’ll do whatever it takes to hold power as long as it suits him. Trump has made it plain that he is a man unwilling to abide by the Constitution, by law, or by tradition, the three elements that sustain our democratic form of government.
Stauber’s endorsement of such a man is incredibly revealing. It speaks most of all to Stauber’s unwillingness to support the Constitution, despite the oath he has taken. It shows his absolute lack of principle and his willingness to do anything to maintain the power and privilege of a member of Congress.
Stauber can not endorse Donald Trump and claim to be a law-and-order candidate. By endorsing Trump, he is openly disrespecting the more than one hundred police officers injured during the Jan. 6 attack. Stauber can’t claim that character or honesty are important to him since Trump lies about virtually everything. Stauber’s endorsement reveals his true character, as a craven henchman to a would-be dictator. It is shameful beyond words.