Regarding Republican Motivated Reasoning: A Moral Question

Did Jane get it right? 

Or is she talking more about hypocrisy than morality, or about both ~equally?

When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country. -- Noah Webster

Motivated reasoning: Emotionally-biased reasoning that produces desired justifications or decisions, but not necessarily ones that accurately reflect the evidence or sound reasoning; motivated reasoning is conscious and leads to reduced cognitive dissonance, which is discomforting for most people; it reflects the tendency to find facts or arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe; in politics this often happens even when the facts or arguments are false or flawed, i.e., when truths are inconvenient

Context

Multiple sources are reporting that ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 election is nonsense. The reporting is getting more pointed and critical. For example, the New york Times writes:

“The telephone call would have been laugh-out-loud ridiculous if it had not been so serious. When Tina Barton picked up, she found someone from President Trump’s campaign asking her to sign a letter raising doubts about the results of the election.

The election that Ms. Barton as the Republican clerk of the small Michigan city of Rochester Hills had helped oversee. The election that she knew to be fair and accurate because she had helped make it so. The election that she had publicly defended amid threats that made her upgrade her home security system.

“Do you know who you’re talking to right now?” she asked the campaign official.

Evidently not.

If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump’s fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.”

CNN interviewed Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) this morning about the president’s and GOP ongoing attacks on the election. In response, Blunt offered the standard radical right motivated reasoning to deflect and weasel out of giving direct answers. The interviewer (Dana Bash) tried hard to pin him down, but he was unpinnable and weaseled out. What little substance Blunt did offer was a combination of deflection and motivated reasoning. One source commented on the interview: 

“‘The President wants to see this process play out,’ Mr Blunt said. ‘The president-elect technically has to be elected president by the electors. That happens in the middle of December,’ the senator said, referring to the electoral college that is chosen to represent each state based on the results of its popular vote.”

Other major republican politicians have repeatedly defended the numerous verbal and court case attacks on the 2020 election in the name of massive voter fraud. That is a lie the republicans and president falsely claim to undermine the election and generate unwarranted but intense distrust amone rank and file republicans in both the election result and Biden’s legitimacy.

The moral question

The president and republican leadership have the right to continue to (i) lie about the election being seriously fraudulent or flawed, and (ii) undermine its and thus Biden’s legitimacy. Among other bad things, these tactics damage democracy, polarizes the republican rank and file and generates unwarranted distrust in elections and fellow citizens. Doing this is legal. But is it moral?

For people who believe that the ends justify means, including deceitful, divisive means like this, what the GOP leadership and president are doing is justified and thus morally acceptable. But that reasoning appears to be persuasive with only about 35-40% of adult Americans. Republicans do this dirty work in the name of party, tribe or some other ideal or political goal and that is good enough. 

For people who believe it is not justified to use deceit or to foment social division to create false beliefs, these tactics can reasonably be seen as immoral. 

Is there a different or better way to analyze this moral question? For example, does it matter that decades of relentless radical right propaganda smearing liberalism, democrats and the democratic party has created a false image of evil and corruption among some or most republicans and significant numbers of independents? Or is the rhetoric from the right basically accurate and thus deceit and social polarization, distrust and discord are acceptable collateral damage in politics?  Or, is morality not even a relevant concern, e.g., because morals are personal and subjective?