There’s an old saying in politics: “When it’s clear you’ve lost, declare victory and depart the field of battle.”

That would have been easy for 6th District U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, because the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman had a lot of victories to declare after the nation’s votes were counted last month:

Republicans gained 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and might hold control of the Senate, depending on how Georgia votes in two runoffs Jan. 5.

Democrat stalwart Collin Peterson was ousted in favor of Republican Michelle Fischbach, a move that stripped the U.S. House of 30 years of Democratic seniority and flipped a large swath of Minnesota to red.

And maybe least noticed but most important to the party, the GOP performance in downballot races nationwide means it will be in the driver’s seat in redistricting decisions that will control 188 congressional seats — 43% of the House of Representatives — according to Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía of fivethirtyeight.com. Democrats will control redrawing of no more than 73 congressional districts in the once-a-decade process.

The consensus among political watchers was that Nov. 3 was a very good day for Republicans, even if the White House prize was lost.

“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”

Instead, powers on the right decided to play to the base through the non-mainstream media, using partisan “news” outlets to spread mistruths and conspiracies about how the Dems were stealing the White House.

The insane rhetoric ranged from leading people to believe that random members of the public should be allowed to storm into vote-counting venues (pro-tip: access is limited to election workers and designated poll-watchers precisely to prevent shenanigans) to seeing fraud in every large jump in results (which happens in every election, but people have usually gone to bed before they see it because the race isn’t close).

Where allegations of election problems appeared remotely credible, they were investigated down to the Sharpies or litigated in more than 50 lawsuits to date. In front of Republican election officials, judges appointed by Republicans, and famously before some appointed quite recently to the Supreme Court by President Trump himself, the GOP lawyers couldn’t make their cases.

Despite all the cries that they had incontrovertible proof of fraud, they didn’t.

It would have been easy for our representative to stay quiet. It would have been hard, but encouraging, for Emmer to have come out on the side of common sense, the will of the people and plain good sportsmanship by stating the obvious when it became just that — obvious: Joe Biden had won the election.

Instead, he and 125 other members of Congress, including Minnesota Reps. Jim Hagedorn and Pete Stauber, shamefully doubled down on the falsehood that something was vastly wrong with this vote. Emmer lent his name, and Minnesota’s, to promote an unbelievably laughable lawsuit in Texas that sought to invalidate the votes of citizens of Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not coincidentally, those four states represent 62 Electoral College votes for Joe Biden.

The Supreme Court had no time for it. None. That’s how completely without merit the case was.

“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”

It again would have been easy for Rep. Emmer to say: “I’m a fighter, and, although I had misgivings, I needed to stick with my team through the end.” That would have been understandable, even if not a path to absolution.

We expect politicians to fight, after all. But we expect them to fight fair. This was not that. Also, he did not say that.

Mr. Emmer is instead choosing the hard route. He’s telling any reporter who asks, including ours, that there is “a process” to resolving election disputes, and that process was just being played out with the inexplicable Texas lawsuit. Nothing to see here.

He’s not technically wrong, even if he is using that fact as a gaslight: Taking concerns about the security of voting processes and veracity of vote counts to court is exactly how it should work.

However, we know the representative is a smart man, smart enough to read the preceding 49 or so court cases as ample evidence that, despite all the people blowing smoke about massive, widespread fraud, there simply was no fire.

He is also smart enough to know that the Constitution gives state legislatures wide latitude in setting and administering election law. And he knows the Constitution doesn’t outline a process for Texas to invalidate the ballots of other states, its delusions of grandeur aside.

And the 6th District representative is certainly aware that public discourse in this nation is becoming dangerously divorced from reality. Anyone, particularly any leader, who reinforces damaging, high-stakes, known falsehoods in order to energize the party base is committing an unforgiveable act of radicalization.

The Minnesota DFL party called Emmer’s throwing in with the Texans “the closest thing to a coup that our republic has seen in living memory.”

Commentators without number have called the act of Emmer and the 125 other representatives “sedition” and “treason.”

Even the former state Republican chair of New Hampshire, Jennifer Horn, called it “dismantling democracy” and an attempt to “overthrow the lawful government of the United States” in a scathing USA Today op-ed before promptly resigning from the party.

“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”

There were so many chances for Emmer to do that. He missed them all.

On Jan. 6, when Congress takes up its normally-invisible role in finalizing the election results, he has one more chance to do the right thing: validate Joe Biden as the rightful winner — even Mitch McConnell has called him president-elect — and help preserve the shreds of our democracy for future elections.

“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”

One more chance to do the right thing. We hope he takes it.

— St. Cloud Times