We continue to note Black success in the November elections, which includes the election of two Republicans from majority-white districts.

The winners include two former military officers Wesley Hunt of Texas and John James of Michigan. When they are seated in the U.S. House of Representatives in January, they will double the number of Black Republicans in the lower chamber to four — the most since 1877.

The two newcomers will join incumbents Byron Donalds of Florida and Burgess Owens of Utah.

Currently, there is one Black Republican senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, who was re-elected and one Black Democratic senator, Corey Booker of New Jersey.

The number of Black Republicans pales with the number of Black Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus, which, if Sen. Ralph Warnock holds his Georgia seat, is poised to have 59 members in the next Congress, including the nonvoting delegates from Guam and Washington, D.C.

Black Democrats also continue to fare better than Black Republicans in elections. Of the 27 Black Republicans who challenged Democrats for House seats, 25 lost.

Disappointing

Our biggest disappointment is that so many Republican candidates who ran in Tuesday’s election — at least 300 — support Donald Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen and he should still be president.

That includes all eight Republicans who ran for the U.S. House in Virginia. They stand with Mr. Trump and his claim that President Biden is illegitimate, according to the Washington Post.

Thank goodness voters sent election deniers Leon Benjamin, Hung Cao and Yesli Vega packing, but that still leaves major portions of our state receiving representation from five of these liars, Rob Wittman, 1st District; Bob Good, 5th District; Ben Cline, 6th District; Morgan Griffith, 9th District; and Congresswoman-elect Jen Kiggans, 2nd District.

Notice that none of these Republicans have raised any stink about the results of Tuesday’s election, even though Virginia residents could even register at the polls and vote.

Who needs Russians when there are so many homegrown elected officials so eager to threaten and attack the integrity of those who operate the election machinery.

It is past time for Republican members of Congress to apologize and repudiate Mr. Trump.

Two elected Republicans, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Virginia Beach Del. Tim Anderson, have recently urged their party to cut ties with Mr. Trump.

But as Roger Chesley points out in a Virginia Mercury column, the call for a divorce from the party’s titular leader stems from the GOP’s poor performance in the elections two weeks ago and “not because of some newly found valor.”

Essentially, they and others don’t want to be associated with a loser who energizes Democrats and drags the party down, as happened Nov. 8 when most Trump-backed candidates were defeated, albeit narrowly, sharply reducing expected Republican gains.

The election results show Democrats surprisingly will retain their slim hold on the Senate, thanks to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, while Republicans have won a narrow majority of the 435 House seats – hardly the ballyhooed “Red Wave.”

Republicans have had plenty of chances in the past to take a stand against Mr. Trump and his racist and anti-democratic statements and to challenge his election lies. Even now, most party members are saying nothing or are continuing to cheer him for calling up a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory.

In the main, Republicans have preferred to be the “sunshine patriots” that Thomas Paine described and shrink from the needed service of ousting Mr. Trump.

That needs to end if a government of the people, by the people, for the people is to survive.

Here we go again.

Two years out, Republican Donald J. Trump, 76, has thrown down the gauntlet and begun his campaign for election in 2024 for a new term as president.

The self-admiring liar created upheaval during his first term and would do so again.

Speculation is that the former president declared Tues- day in hopes his candidacy would deter or undermine the multiple investigations into his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, including his central role in organizing and inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

We’re still a long way even from the selection of a Republican nominee, and there are others who might want to challenge him.

But let us be prepared to do all we can to stop this man whose hope is to be America’s first dictator.

Trail of tears

Our hearts bleed for the slain and injured UVA students, their precious parents, family and loved ones, The UVA family, the Charlottesville community, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. May Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry rest in peace, knowing that the joy they brought and shared with others will never be forgotten.