The mask is off the Turtle and the Republican Senate.

According to the Politico, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants are warning Republicans not to object when the electors are certified on January 6.

McConnell warned Republican senators Tuesday during a private caucus call not to object to the election results on Jan. 6, according to two sources familiar with the matter. 

McConnell told his caucus that challenging the results would force Republicans to take a "terrible vote" because they would need to vote it down and appear against President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) also echoed McConnell's remarks.

The terrible vote, as McConnell put it, would be the bad optics of Senate members voting against President Trump and affirming Joe Biden.  Better to keep the treachery hidden than out in the open, eh, Mitch?  And it would certainly put a crimp in the campaign donations if 80 million Trump-supporters witnessed a Republican Senate selling out the president, wouldn't it Mitch?

This was the second example on Tuesday of McConnell undermining the efforts of Trump and his legal team to fight back against election fraud.  The first shiv came Monday night.

In a ten-minute speech on the Senate floor, the Turtle congratulated China Joe and Kamala Harris as the first female vice president elect.

"Many of us hoped that the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January 20.  The Electoral College has spoken," McConnell said in a floor speech.  "So today, I want to congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden."

Cue the media and the echo chamber of "It's over!"  Trump may not have conceded, but McConnell did so for him, as put by Rush Limbaugh on  his Tuesday show.

Senate majority whip John Thune added:

I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election, but in the end, at some point you have to face the music[.] ... I think once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it's time for everybody to move on.

Instead of outrage at these remarks from McConnell and Thune, let's look at the timing.  Remember, there are no coincidences in politics.

On Monday, there were two important revelations that were favorable to the Trump effort to expose voter fraud and overturn the election.  1) The Antrim County, Michigan report revealed Dominion voting machines were manipulated so that individuals or machines could change 68.05 percent of the votes; 2) seven states accepted two slates of electors.  In addition to the electors voting for the presumptive winner, Biden, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and New Mexico also selected Republican electors in case of an overturning of the election because of widespread fraud.  Just having two slates of electors casts a pall over Biden's alleged Electoral College victory of 306. 

McConnell's subterfuges effectively took the spotlight off these two stories and changes the media narrative from possible hope for the Trump side to futility, since the senators from the president's own party are abandoning him.

But let's not allow ourselves to be distracted by outrage but instead choose to understand the fact that we have only one party rule in Washington, D.C., a UniParty.

The Republican establishment and the Democrats are merely two sides of the same coin.  Until Trump, they used to get away with fooling us that the Democrats are ruthless and power-hungry, while the Republicans, albeit weak and feckless, were honorable.

It's all been Kabuki theater designed to keep the unwashed from breaking out the pitchforks and the torches on Congress.  For years, conservatives have been manipulated into fearing the Democrats so much that we would support the Republicans, whom we have grown to loathe, because they were all we had to slow the inevitable onslaught of the left.

The Republicans constantly pay us back by stabbing us in the back, crushing any grassroots movements like the Tea Party and surrendering to the Democrats at every opportunity, while promising us that "we'll get 'em at the next election."

Why is this show put on for conservatives?  My theory is that whenever the GOP angers us, as McConnell and his toadies did Monday and Tuesday, it draws our anger on to them.  As a result, we become distracted to the big picture of a UniParty being in on the steal and the selling out of America to our enemies, foreign and domestic, for filthy lucre.

Other than judicial nominations, McConnell has undermined Trump at every opportunity, especially in policy regarding illegal immigration and trade with China.  If you have ever wondered why many of Trump's Cabinet picks have turned out to be losers, it's because all he has had to choose from are swamp-dwellers who are the only candidates able to pass Senate confirmation.

McConnell assured this by not allowing the Senate to officially recess, but instead stay in "session" by holding pro forma sessions during Trump's entire first term.  These sessions have no legislative business such as the introduction or debate on bills or resolutions, are usually over in a few minutes from gavel to gavel, and require only the presence of at least one senator.

Conservatives give McConnell credit for putting through a record number of judges.  We also praised McConnell for not bowing to Democrat/media pressure and allowing the Senate confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

However, with the three Trump nominees, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch, turning their backs on Trump in refusing the Texas lawsuit, one has to wonder about the caliber of justices McConnell approved by the Senate.  Will these justices rule according to the Constitution, or will they bow and scrape to fear and political expediency?  If the three Supreme Court justices are any indication, McConnell may have put forth judges who may not be the strict constructionists we thought they would be.

While there are some warriors on the Republican side, they are few and far between and mostly in the House of Representatives.  I have long thought RINOs are merely Democrats who run as Republicans for the explicit purpose of undermining party morale.

Both party establishments want Trump out so badly that they can taste it with their forked tongues.  They want Biden in because he is the swamp personified: corrupted.  The swamp wants members whom they have something on and after 45 years in Washington and with his dealings with China and other bad players.  China Joe is the perfect foil for those who will be pulling his strings behind the scenes. 

McConnell seems just as corrupted as Biden.  And his recent actions solidify that he is no friend of conservatives.  I hope more conservatives will awaken to McConnell's treachery and duplicity.

Dex Bahr is a freelance writer and author of the book No Christian Man is an Island: Leading the Spiritual Quest in America's Culture Wars.

Caricature by Donkey Hotey (cropped), Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.