Tag Archives: Hawley

Past the Point of No Return

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The New York Times just published a “guest opinion” piece by J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and an advisor to Republican senators. https://nyti.ms/3HS9cjT

The article is entitled, The Conservative Case for Avoiding a Repeat of Jan. 6. That language suggested to me that the argument would be that we should just accept the Big Lie that the last election was stolen, accept massive voter suppression legislation around the country in red states and, as a democracy, roll over and not only play dead but be dead. My second reaction was, over my dead body.

Turns out, I was overreacting. My first impression of the topic was wrong. Moral: always read the story before falling for the headline. So, I did.

Luttig, to be sure, is a learned man, shaped in the higher echelons of Republican politics and the judiciary during the halcyon days of the Reagan and G.W. Bush administrations. I say “halcyon” because this was the time when the Republican Party still purported, at least, to stand for something. Luttig eventually resigned from the Court of Appeals to become Boeing’s General Counsel with a reported pay raise of more than $2.5 million. https://bit.ly/3Jvs88e Pretty good for a boy from Tyler, Texas.

I mention all that because, as is often true, challenging someone of his standing and accomplishment can be … challenging. But what are they going to do? I don’t practice law anymore and I do love a challenge. So, let’s look at Luttig’s latest thoughts on the all-important subject of avoiding another violent attack on the government and the Constitution.

To his credit, Luttig recognizes that Trump and his Republican devotees represent a “clear and present danger” to our democracy. Noting issues with the language of the 1887 (yes, over 120 years ago) Electoral Count Act, he further acknowledges that the efforts of Senators Hawley and Cruz to overturn the election were based on “little more than a wish” and notes that Trump has confessed to his perfidy, both past and looking forward.

Trump’s continued promotion of the Big Lie has never been an issue. As president he stated he could do “whatever I want” and he still thinks that. Here’s where things get sticky for Judge Luttig.

Referring to the mythical remnants of the Republican Party after deducting Trump fantasists, Luttig says they are “mystifyingly stymied by Mr. Trump” and while they allegedly reject his lies about 2020,

they are confused as to exactly how to move on from the 2020 election when their putative leader remains bewilderingly intent on driving the wedge between the believers in his lies and the disbelievers.

This political fissure in the Republican Party was bound to intensify sooner or later, and now it has, presenting an existential threat to the party in 2024. If these festering divisions cost the Republicans in the midterm elections and jeopardize their chances of reclaiming the presidency in 2024, which they well could, the believers and disbelievers alike will suffer.

In moving with such facility from “clear and present danger to democracy” to concern about the “existential threat to the {Republican] party,” the Judge reveals his true goal is to right the listing Republican ship and enhance its political fortunes, notwithstanding its hypnotic devotion to Trump. If so, his argument has little or nothing to do with protecting the country from the collapse of democracy.

Luttig’s argument is another variation of “can’t we all just get along?”

the right course is for both parties to set aside their partisan interests and reform the Electoral Count Act, which ought not be a partisan undertaking.

“Ought not,” indeed. My, oh my, what a wonderful world it could be.

Luttig completes the fantasy analysis by assigning mutually reinforcing goals to the two parties. This is a standard tenet of books and courses on negotiating for “mutual gain.” Democrats, Luttig imagines should want to reform the Electoral Count Act to protect democracy which he admits is failing.  This, he speculates, would “prevent another attack like the one at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” The logic of that premise-conclusion escapes me. As Peter Navarro has insisted, the aim of the January 6 mob was to force the election into the hands of the states, where the Republican majority would install Trump. They didn’t really care what the law said or what power Vice President Pence actually had under the law.

The mutual gain in Luttig’s conception is that “Republicans should want to reform the law for these same reasons, and more.”  Uh huh. He asserts that, while Trump and Trumpers won’t join, “there are consequential reasons of constitutional and political principle for the large remainder of Republicans to favor reform in spite of the former president’s opposition.”

“Consequential reasons of constitutional and political principle” —  got it. I am rolling on the floor LMAO. Except it’s not funny. Luttig’s thesis, right out of the old and long-ago discarded Book of Republican Orthodoxy, is that,

Republicans are proponents of limited federal government. They oppose aggregation of power in Washington and want it dispersed to the states. It should be anathema to them that Congress has the power to overturn the will of the American people in an election that, by constitutional prescription, is administered by the states, not Washington. If the Democrats are willing to divest themselves of the power to decide the presidency that the 49th Congress wrongly assumed 135 years ago, then it would be the height of political hypocrisy for the Republicans to refuse to divest theirs.

Well, now, isn’t that wonderful. Republicans favor limited federal government. Unless, of course, their state gets hit by a big hurricane or flood. Then they are more than happy to line up for federal money and manpower. Actually, I had understood that Republican orthodoxy was opposed to big government everywhere, but that idea was trashed in Texas recently. Republicans are perfectly fine with big government telling people what to do and not do, as long as it aligns with their religious or so-called freedom and family values.

Putting aside Luttig’s phantasmagorical search for coherence in Republican political doctrine (it being the party that advanced no platform in 2020), he next argues that Republicans should want reform of the Electoral Count Act because it is blatantly unconstitutional.”

Trump acolytes like Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley should appreciate the need to reform this unconstitutional law.

… no Republican should want to be an accessory to any successful attempt to overturn the next election — including an effort by Democrats to exploit the law.

Did you catch that unsubtle attempt to both-sides the question? He goes on to suggest that it’s the Democrats that may abuse the ECA in 2024 and thus Republicans should support a statutory redo to prevent that heinous outcome.

Someone please make him stop. Cruz and Hawley caring about the constitution? Seriously?

Luttig argues that reform should include giving federal, yes, federal, courts the power to resolve disputes over state electors and to ensure compliance. Right. Remember Gore and Bush?  And recall that the courts do not have command of the means to enforce anything. That power largely, if not entirely in practice, resides in the Executive Branch.

There are other details to Luttig’s proposals, but, frankly, madam, I don’t give a damn. The Republicans are so dug in on resisting any and every action supported by Democrats that the debate over electoral count reform could last decades. All the while Trump would be whining that he was cheated and his lunatic fringe supporters would continue attacking state capitols and Congress … unless and until the leaders of these fascist efforts are indicted, arrested, tried, and imprisoned.

Recall that the Republican Party has, among other things, embraced many of the conspiracy theories of QAnon, failed to discipline members like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, supported a president who lied and dissembled about a deadly virus that has now killed more than 915,000 Americans and maimed countless more, and twice refused to convict on impeachment in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt. These people are not going to do anything to help the country resist the fascism they regularly promote.

If Luttig is right that “the future of our democracy depends on reform of the Electoral Count Act” that was enacted in 1887, we are in more trouble than rewriting an obscure statute can fix. It’s fine to say that “Republicans and Democrats need to put aside their partisan differences long enough to fix this law.” Fine indeed, but such proposals will have no credibility as long as the planners/leaders/major perpetrators of January 6 walk free. Senators Manchin and Sinema have put the last nail in the myth of bipartisanship.

And that’s the one point that Luttig got right:

the only members in Congress who might not want to reform this menacing law are those planning its imminent exploitation to overturn the next presidential election.

If you remain in doubt as to who they are, their names may be found here, https://bit.ly/3gPVNwM, in the updated Congressional Hall of Dishonor

In closing, let me repeat: no statutory language changes are going to protect our democracy from elected and unelected officials who have no respect for law or oaths of office. The Republican Party has made clear beyond reasonable doubt that it is committed to obtaining and keeping power permanently by whatever means are necessary. If it were otherwise, it would have formally repudiated the lying traitor Donald Trump. Instead, it has embraced him as its leader. Just ask Lindsey Graham.

People who believe in the American democracy, however flawed it may be, had better remain alert to the danger and act/vote accordingly. Don’t be distracted by appeals to bipartisanship and unity, however (or not) well-intended. We’re well past the point of no return.

Has the Washington Post Gone Over to the Dark Side?

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I was astonished and disturbed that the Washington Post would give a member of the January 6 insurrection streaming time on the Washington Post Live, but that’s exactly what it did with Senator John Hawley on May 4. The full transcript may be read here: https://wapo.st/3eT235C

I am doubly disturbed about this now that I am aware that it was the Washington Post that invited Donald Trump to sit at its table at the 2011 White House Correspondents Association Dinner at which then-President Barack Obama mercilessly and deservedly chided Trump for Trump’s role in the birther conspiracy regarding Obama’s birthplace. Trump was clearly very unhappy at being the butt of President Obama’s humiliating jokes. I’ll have more to say about that when I review Obama’s magnificent memoir, A Promised Land.

The interview at hand was conducted by Cat Zakrzewski, identified as a tech policy reporter and author of The Technology 202 newsletter. She was chosen, perhaps, because the program was billed as “The Missouri senator discusses breaking up big tech, antitrust reform and the post-Trump era for the Republican Party,” but it did not go well, in part because Zakrzewski opened the interview by testing Hawley on other subjects for which she was, it seemed, ill-prepared to cope with his aggressive style.

Zakrzewski opened the discussion by asking the open-ended question, “what responsibility do you feel for the cascading events that resulted on January 6th?” This presented Hawley with the perfect opening to gaslight, both-sides and what-about the country regarding his role. And he did. Hawley claimed that what he did was nothing compared to Democrats who had lodged objections to three past presidential elections.

True, as far it goes. But there are a few critical differences Hawley conveniently failed to mention. They are set out in detail at https://bit.ly/33kU7ES Suffice to say that in 2000, after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 extremely questionable decision to stop the Florida recount, it was Al Gore, the losing Democrat, who, serving as Senate President, enforced the rules to stop the objections. In 2004, overwhelming bipartisan votes rejected the objections lodged by just one member from each house. In 2016, it was again a Democratic Vice President who insisted that the rules be followed in the final certification and, absent any support in the Senate for objections, the tally in Trump’s favor was approved.

In 2020, on the other hand, Republicans brought, and lost, more than 60 legal challenges to multiple swing state outcomes. They never produced evidence of voter fraud on which the claim of “The Big Steal” was based. The entire claim was nonsense and Hawley knew it. His disassociation from facts mirrors the subordination of the entire Republican Party to the Big Lie by Donald Trump that the election was stolen.

Hawley then ran away with the interview in a late-in-coming exegesis on his disapproval of the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol, the same attack he encouraged with the fist pump that was photographed and seen by millions. And, again, Hawley attempted to minimize the attack by deflective references to other acts of violence to which he also objected, returning at the end to refer to the non-existent issue of “election integrity” that he insists was at the root of his objections to the Electoral College certification.

…in terms of having a debate about election integrity, I promised my constituents I would. I did, and I don’t regret that at all. That’s me doing my job.

When Zakrzewski challenged Hawley, noting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had dismissed challenges to the Pennsylvania count, Hawley rejected the Court’s decision, claiming it was not on the merits, was partisan,  that the court “also interfered with the count itself,” and was “in violation of their own precedent.” In other words, Hawley rejected the action of the highest court in Pennsylvania because he disagreed with it and proceeded to demand the overturning of the election in that state. So much for Republican devotion to “law and order.” Zakrzewski barely got a word in.

On the subject of a national 9/11 style commission to investigate the January 6 attack, Hawley, being the loyal Trumpist, objected to focusing on the attack and argued that the commission should instead address the security failures that allowed the attack to take place. Those issues, however, have already been investigated and Hawley has no explanation, other than deflecting from the core issues of the attack and its inspiration by Trump, for expanding the commission’s scope to other issues. It doesn’t take much imagination to foresee how a commission with a multiple-element mandate would be derailed by Republicans who clearly intend to protect Trump from accountability for his role in directing the assault. Just watch any hearing in which Rep. Jim Jordan participates and you’ll understand.

When again asked about the attacks on Capitol Police, Hawley again deflected to other incidents, mentioning for the second time the Nation of Islam. No objection from Zakrzewski. When asked about the fist-pump incident, Hawley, for the third time brought up BLM protests and riots.

The interview then shifted to other subjects related to the power of tech companies and Hawley’s proposal to break them up. Hawley was able to talk over Zakrzewski on every issue. It brought to mind the first Biden-Trump debate in which Trump simply ran over the moderator throughout the program. After each Hawley monologue, Zakrzewski just moved on to the next topic. But when she tried to explore the effects of the Big Lie about the stolen election, Hawley just continued his rant about political censorship by tech companies. She let him get away with it and turned to the then-pending plan to remove Liz Cheney from leadership to which Hawley demurred (she’s in the House so their problem).

The “interview” ended with Zakrzewski asking “would you support former President Trump running again for office in 2024?” Hawley again deflected, saying Trump’s decision was his to make, Hawley would never give him advice, etc. In short, no answer. Interview over.

Other than providing Hawley a platform from which to practice his both-sides deflection routines, what did the Washington Post accomplish by giving this supporter of January 6 this exposure? Whatever it was, it didn’t work. Instead, Hawley was given the opportunity to promote himself and his  “oh, no, it wasn’t me. I’m opposed to violent protest in all forms. Did I mention Portland? I was just doing what my constituents wanted me to do. Oh, yeah, I’m just a humble servant of the people of Missouri, though I reserve the right to reject the rulings of the highest courts in states like Pennsylvania and vote to overturn elections whose outcomes I don’t like. Did I mention antifa? Riots? Yeah, I’m for law and order unless it means following the decisions of the highest courts in a state whose election result I don’t like.”

If the Post is fooled by Hawley’s professed devotion to protecting free speech and the First Amendment, we are in even more serious trouble than I have thought. The Post should know by now that it cannot escape the fascist propensities of the rightwing politicians who shout at every opportunity, “fake news, enemy of the people” about the mainstream media. I fully accept that the Post should report genuine news – the Capitol attack on January 6 was news – but it should stay out of the business of creating news by giving platforms to the very people who would destroy the free press in a heartbeat if given the power. @WashingtonPost, do better. Before it’s too late.

The Republican Unity Smokescreen

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In an astonishing but not surprising exercise in false-equivalency and what-about-ism, Republican Gary Abernathy argues in WAPO, https://wapo.st/3oT6n8t, that the price of unity going forward is to pretend Donald Trump is really Mother Theresa in a suit and that nothing serious happened in Washington on January 6. President Biden, Abernathy argues, should let bygones be “boys will be boys.” In effect, Biden should validate the “concerns” of right-wing/conservative conspiracy-meisters and extend an olive branch.

Abernathy begins his sanctimony by objecting to Biden’s comparing the election-fraud lie campaign of Trump-Hawley-Cruz (the-list-goes-on), to Nazi propaganda techniques. Why? Because, Abernathy says, marketers exaggerate and Democrats lie too, and let’s not forget the violence “instigated by left-leaning agitators” (read that as, “those violent Black people and antifa”), so what’s the problem? If Biden wants to unify the country, he should just flip the Trump Charlottesville playbook and go with “bad people on both sides.” Abernathy says Biden should “acknowledge that there’s plenty of blame to go around for a nation more on edge than at any time since the 1960s.”

In short, Abernathy, likely speaking for most of the Republican establishment now, argues, in effect, that the Trump-directed assault on the Capitol that was intended to stop the Congress from completing the election process to confirm Joe Biden, and thereby retain the defeated Donald Trump as a dictator/president, was equivalent to the resistance to the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He grudgingly admits that the second Trump impeachment is “admittedly more justifiable than the first one” but in referring to it as a “melodrama,” Abernathy uses sleight of words to take away what he purports to concede. Most thinking adults are now aware that the government itself was lying to the people about Vietnam, from the beginning and throughout. Does Abernathy really want to equate the two situations: Trump and Vietnam?

The ultimate effect of Abernathy’s “reasoning” is that the burden falls to President Biden to extend an olive branch to the gang of insurrectionists and traitors who tried to topple the government in the service of a corrupt and incompetent grifter. In short, Abernathy seems to believe that the burden for the insurrection falls on the shoulders of those who did not engage in insurrection. Remarkable.

The real beef here is obscured by that opening line, but Abernathy soon reveals his real grievance: that, finally, after four years of helping spread Trump/Republican disinformation and outright lies about our government and our country, the social media platforms decided it was time, with a few weeks left, to suspend the president’s access to a free megaphone for amplifying his mendacity to the public and his attempts to overthrow the government.

Abernathy’s real gripe thus seems to be the decision to cut off Trump from his endless broadcast of falsehoods through serial tweeting:

In the current environment, conservatives are rightfully alarmed at the prospect of crucial digital platforms being pulled out from under them in response to the support they express for a particular politician or idea. The tech giants are private entities claiming to be following their guidelines, not government agencies violating the First Amendment, but a president can use his bully pulpit to influence their actions.

There are those who say that Trump abused social media to incite violence. Others read the same tweets and disagree. More disturbing than anything Trump could tweet, though, is the fact that the highest elected officeholder in the land could have his voice virtually silenced by the whims of a handful of unelected Silicon Valley bullies. [boldface added by me]

This part of the diatribe is so disingenuous, it’s laughable. Digital platforms were not pulled out from conservatives merely because they supported a particular politician or “idea.” Trump expressed very few “ideas” in his constant tweeting [when did he actually work at the job of being president?]. It was not even the constant lying that fact-checkers found, without refutation, set a world record in outright false messages.

Those were “concerns” and the subjects of many complaints, but the digital media folks stuck with Trump/Republicans despite all that lying. It was when Trump decided to send a mob of violent supporters to interfere with, and threaten the physical safety of, the Congress that the platforms finally said, “too much is too much.” This was no “whim.” To call it that is to minimize the most serious assault on American democracy since the Civil War threatened to literally break the country.

Silliest of all is the argument that Trump has actually been silenced. The media still hangs on his every word, though he’s not talking so much these days as he sulks and prepares for the political anonymity and legal adversities that await him beginning in a few days. That’s on him. He has plenty of supportive media (FOX, OAN, Breitbart and others) ready to repeat and amplify every false message he still wants to convey.

Maybe the reality is that Trump finally realizes that the game is over, and he can’t win. He has finally, after a lifetime of being the boss, been told “no, and no means no. You lost. It’s over.” We’ll see about that. The nation’s capital city and the capitals of all 50 states are on high alert for days to come to the threat of violence by Trump’s deranged supporters who still claim, with no factual support whatsoever, that the election was stolen.

Abernathy’s grievances against the tech platforms are so profound that he has undertaken to write parts of President Biden’s inaugural address for him. For example, he proposes Biden say,

What we should not fall prey to is the temptation to silence the voices of millions of peaceful and patriotic Americans by eliminating their preferred platforms because of a few bad actors. That’s not who we are as Americans.

But “who we are as Americans,” if it has any meaning now, is certainly not the thousands of people who, at the direction of the president, refused to accept reality and instead used violence to try to change the outcome of an election and thereby disenfranchise more than 81 milli0n voters who elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The “few bad actors” excuse went down Trump’s golden toilet with the videos of the Capitol assault and the deaths of five people, including a police officer, at the hands of screaming traitors to American values, acting on lies promoted by the president and multiple Republican members of Congress.

The “few bad actors” is just another variant of “fine people on both sides” and it’s not good enough, not even close. The voices of “millions of peaceful and patriotic Americans,” who were not present or represented by the insurrectionists at the Capitol, have not been silenced. They have full access to Twitter, Facebook and the rest to make such conservative arguments as they wish. Indeed, many of them continue to spew hate and conspiracy nonsense to this day. It’s actually quite difficult to be censured by the platforms, but, as we learned, even they have limits. As for Trump, well, just too bad about him. He made his choice and, finally, there were consequences. And, of course, there are other platforms where he can continue to spew lies, crazy conspiracy theories and grievances against anything and everything he and they believe is oppressing them.

The truth that Abernathy and the politicians he continues to support refuse to accept is that the election was not stolen. Continuing to argue otherwise based on fantasies lacking any basis in reality is not an American value that the incoming president should be focusing on right now.

Biden understands that he must immediately try to overcome the triple threat/shambles left behind by the Trump administration and its enablers: the pandemic, the crushed economy and the collapsing climate on which our very survival depends. Abernathy doesn’t want to face the horrible truth that Donald Trump’s reign as president has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, wrecked the economy and set back our attempts to combat climate catastrophe perhaps beyond repair. THOSE are the priorities, not the continued whining and grievance of Trump’s political base.

Abernathy’s preferred version of Biden’s address also would contain this:

Biden could further make conservative Americans sit up and take notice by speaking their language, saying, “In the United States, we don’t ‘cancel’ people because their opinions and ideas diverge from what many of us might prefer. We don’t exile people for criticizing or questioning their government or even our democratic processes — both of which can be constantly fortified by our willingness to consider the voices of all Americans, not just those with whom we agree.

That is wrong on virtually every level. Abernathy is laying claim to the idea that everything is equal: lies, insane conspiracies, calls for violence – all are entitled to equal credit with the truth and reality. That is simply wrong. We cannot and should not use the government to suppress the expression of non-violent ideas, but, to use a time-worn but valid analogy, one may not cry “fire” in a darkened theatre when there is no fire and you’re just afraid of the dark. The First Amendment does not protect such speech, nor should it. And it doesn’t matter a wit that your fear of the dark is genuine.

Private communication platforms are not obligated to give equal voice to boldfaced lies and fantasies which are not the same or equivalent to positions/arguments about political philosophy. QAnon is not entitled to equal space on Twitter or Facebook. In the end, conservatives can choose to believe whatever they want to believe, including rejecting science and scientific method as valid means of determining what is true, but they don’t have the right to control privately-owned space for the purpose of undermining truth as a concept and dis-establishing the government.

A final point: Abernathy’s call for Biden to “embrace Americans across the political spectrum” was addressed repeatedly during the campaign. Biden said many times he would be president for all people, not just those who voted for him. That pledge stands, as Mr. Abernathy surely knows, but it is incredibly disingenuous, in my opinion, to try to wedge into that commitment an acceptance of the right-wing orthodoxy that truth and falsity as just two equal versions of one thing. They are opposites, not equivalents, and Joe Biden knows it. Someday, maybe, Republicans will awaken from their dreamworld and accept that truth as well.

 

Quo Vadis, Republican Party?

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You may recognize the Latin phrase, or not. It derives from “Domine, quo vadis? meaning Lord, where are you going?” and was assertedly spoken by Saint Peter who, fleeing persecution in Jerusalem, came upon the resurrected Jesus and made the inquiry, leading Jesus to tell Peter that he was returning to be crucified again. [source: e­­ncyclopedia.com https://bit.ly/38OcLIG] [Also a 1951 movie title]

I was reminded of this by a, typically, erudite and lengthy essay by Yale historian Timothy Snyder in today’s New York Times Magazine, entitled The American Abyss: Trump, the mob and what comes next. Snyder also wrote On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, a book that should be required reading for every American interested in the survival of our democracy.

A major premise of Snyder’s Times essay is that the Republican Party’s political establishment has two main branches. One, the gamers,

is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government.

The main exponent of this group’s point of view is the former Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of the failed state of Kentucky.

The other, even more craven group (my view, not necessarily Snyder’s) are the “breakers,” who “might actually break the system and have power without democracy.” That group is now led by Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.

Snyder then begins the analysis, noting that to some Republicans the hopeless quest to overturn the election was just political theater, but

for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow. Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence ….

If that doesn’t lead you to immediately buy a Times subscription and also Snyder’s book, I don’t know about you….{I get no royalties; just trying to be helpful]

As noted, Snyder’s treatment is erudite and complex. My own view is more simplistic.

The principal distinguishing feature of our mish-mash American democratic republic with its squirrelly Constitution and three “co-equal” branches of government intended to mutually restrain each other, is that the people elect their leaders. If the leaders fail to perform as the voters think they expected, the voters can elect new leaders on the immutable schedule of elections. AND — this is critical — assuming a fair process, the loser accepts the loss and waits for the next election in the immutable schedule for another try. ALWAYS. The loser accepts the loss, moves on, reorganizes and so on.

If the acceptance of loss, a/k/a the peaceful transfer of power, were to be lost, the entire system, Constitution notwithstanding, would collapse and American democracy would be finished.

As noted, the essential premise of this scheme is “fair process,” and everyone knows that politics can be “rough and tumble,” “dirty,” and other unpleasantries, often in direct proportion to how much power is at stake. But “rough and tumble” or not, the process by which voting occurs must be accepted as fair, meaning each voter has a fair and equal opportunity to vote and to have her vote honestly counted.

Obviously, that goal is aspirational. We have, for example, gerrymandering which alters the “equal opportunity” element by rearranging the electorate to favor one party over another. Since both parties, in a floating tit-for-tat combat try to tilt the system in their favor when they can, the electoral system begins to resemble an exercise in mutually-assured-destruction, a/k/a MAD. And that doesn’t even account for the way in which the Electoral College system enhances the votes of smaller states or the way in which the allocation of legislative seats dilutes the votes of high-population states.

But those are features of the imperfect system that have been present for a very long time. At bottom, there remains, at least until now, the fundamental core principle that the loser will accept the loss and move on.

But, what if the process is not fair, in that the voting or the vote-counting is rigged in some way that favors one side? Why would the loser be expected to just accept defeat, an ill-gotten gain by an adversary with no recompense? Isn’t that exactly what Trump and his supporters have claimed?

No, it is not. The entire system by which the “truth” is determined in our society is based on arrangements provided in the Constitution. Thus, the taking of an oath to support the Constitution is an oath to accept those arrangements. The determination of “truth,” as close as we frail humans can come to its ascertainment, is made by a system of challenge-response-decision by independent courts which in turn have elaborate appeal arrangements so that erroneous decisions may be corrected before doing lasting harm. Like all human systems, the legal system is not perfect, but it is the closest we have come and is far better than a system in which appointed autocrats make all the decisions. And our systems have published “rules of engagement” that all parties must follow, so that the fight in a legal environment is as fair as it can be, assuming both sides have access to adequate representation.

Thus, our system includes the legal system as a fail-safe against faulty electoral process, as regards problems like obstruction of access to the polls, corrupt vote counting and the like.

Turning then to the 2020 presidential election, we first should recognize that the president began complaining of election rigging even before issue was joined with a chosen Democratic opponent. Moreover, through direct manipulation of the U.S. Postal Service, he tried to rig the election in his own favor, all the while complaining about what the opposition was up to. Aided by Republican governors, access to the ballot box was restricted by closing polling stations and other techniques of voter suppression.

Whatever one may say about social media and their manipulation by Trump and other politicians, those media also enabled the Democrats to call out the voter suppression as it was happening. So, it came to pass that the president, in sharply declining popularity as he downplayed the deadly coronavirus and was caught trying to pressure foreign governments to help undermine his opponent, lost the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, lost the key battleground states and lost the Electoral College vote. Joe Biden was declared the winner.

Trump fought back, screeching that the election had been stolen due to massive voter fraud, but only in the key battleground states he lost and, inexplicably, only regarding the presidential election but not the down-ballot races for supremely important seats such as that held by Majority Leader McConnell of Kentucky, who survived a challenge despite having done little or nothing for his constituents. Trump sent a team of lawyers into the field, filing lawsuit after lawsuit, more than 60 cases, many to be decided by judges he had appointed. Not knowing and not caring how the legal system worked, Trump apparently expected his appointees to simply award him victories. He, and his crack legal team, could not, however, overcome the lack of evidence, defined as credible information of specific facts supporting a legal claim. Such evidence simply did not exist. Trump’s case was actually damaged by trotting out “witnesses” who did not understand how vote counting worked in their precincts. Trump lost ALL but one insignificant decision, more than 60 defeats. Even his “house lawyer,” William Barr, putative Attorney General of the United States, concluded that Trump had lost the election fairly.

And still Trump cried “foul,” arguing that he had won the election by a landslide, that the fix was in.  His mendacity was exposed yet again by a tape of his attempt to induce the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” a collection of votes just one more than Trump needed to reverse Biden’s win in Georgia. Never mind that for his claims to be true, tens of thousands of people would have had to conspire to tilt the vote count, a vast conspiracy that both theory and practice informs us could not happen without someone spilling the beans. There were no beans to spill.

And still Trump cried “foul.” And still his Republican enablers in Congress remained silent or engaged in full-throated support not only of Trump’s right to test the legal waters, but in support of the proposition that the election had been “stolen.” Stolen by means and persons unknown, but stolen nonetheless.

That “situation,” created by Trump’s own irrational insistence and domination of his political party, led to the January 6 assault on the Capitol Building in which a violent mob of Trump supporters tried to prevent the final certification of the Electoral College vote count. Trump watched on TV, apparently quite happy with his handiwork. He was a hero to his fans and within arms’ reach of getting the second term he claimed to deserve.

The attack failed, a perfect metaphor for Trump’s presidency.

Trump’s term ends at noon on January 20, just three days away. The nation’s capital city is an armed military camp awaiting a predicted resumption of the January 6 attack in an attempt to overthrow the government and install Trump as dictator.

Time will tell. But what is clear to me at least is that Donald Trump has violated the fundamental and central premise of democratic government. He has rejected his electoral loss and is trying to force himself on the country for a second term.

This then is the root of the tree of ultimate political evil. Unwillingness to accept the loss and move on after being heard more than 60 times in court, and despite multiple audits and recounts, is a  bridge too far, an undoing of norms, conventions and legal/Constitutional principles from which there is no recovery for forgiveness. In this effort, Trump is supported by multiple elected representatives of the people in the national legislature.

For those reasons alone, though there are many others, Trump should not only be convicted in his second impeachment, but he must also be prevented from holding public office again. If you don’t play by the rules, you must not be allowed on the field. The same is true for the other politicians who continue to falsify, fabricate and bloviate regarding the election result. They — Hawley, Cruz, Johnson and the others who voted to reject the final count even after the January 6 coup attempt —  must be removed from office and banned from holding another.

Republican Traitors Last Try to Subvert the Constitution

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I am sorry to start the New Year 2021 on this note, but I am unable to escape the news that Republicans, led by a senator Hawley from Missouri, will attempt yet again to undermine the constitutional system for electing national leaders by urging Congress to reject the 2020 election result. https://bit.ly/34YJecO This move, reportedly to be endorsed by at least 140 House Republicans, is, of course, doomed to failure.

It could be seen, indeed has been seen even by a handful of Republicans, as just an act of political theater to appeal to Donald Trump’s political following and to serve as the “first hat in the ring for 2024” in case Trump himself is unwilling or unable (in prison?) to run again. It could be seen that way and thus dismissed as just another act in the political play the Republicans have been staging since Trump first declared the election was going to be rigged against him. It could be seen that way even as Trump himself took steps, through the Postal Service and with the help of compliant Republican governors, to suppress Democratic votes around the country. It could be seen that way even though no complaints of election-rigging have been presented as to the down-ticket Republicans who won elections in states Biden won.

One could go on and on about what “could be seen” as harmless politicking by a group of people with no principles other than winning-at-all-costs, a group who readily align themselves with looney conspiracy theories propounded by QAnon, whatever that is. Harmless politicking by a group of unprincipled politicians who brought dozens of lawsuits around the country claiming, without evidence, that electoral fraud was responsible for Trump’s defeat and who lost all but one (insignificant) such case. Harmless politicking by a president who continues to claim that he won the popular vote, that he won states where multiple recounts found that he lost, and on and on. Harmless politicking by a group of spineless sycophants indifferent to or, more likely, intent upon inspiring acts of violence against, for example, the Governor of Michigan and others.

But, in my opinion, that is not the right way to see this. The correct way is to recognize and, in due course, to act upon this reality: a large group of elected officials from across the United States have chosen to adhere to the blatantly false, phantasmagorical ravings of a desperate and, possibly, mentally impaired, president and are threatening to overturn the lawful and proper election of that president’s opponent. These acts are, I submit, acts of treason against the United States.

To be clear, I use “treason” here in the colloquial sense, not the strict legal meaning that we are often reminded is extremely narrow and almost impossible to prove. https://nbcnews.to/3o6Uyvc Treason as defined in the Constitution, Article III, section 3 is only this: “… levying war against [he United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The U.S. Code [18 U.S. Code § 2381] implements that provision this way:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

I use “treason” instead to refer to overt acts designed to, and with the potential to actually, subvert the Constitution, leading inevitably to regime after regime refusing to recognize “elections” and continuing in power with the support of the military and police despite the actual desires of the population, until, eventually, power is determined solely by who has the support of the military. Then, of course, the United States will have ceased to exist in any meaningful political or cultural sense. It will join the legions of other failed countries where the people do not get to choose their leaders. Democracy will be finished, here and, very likely, everywhere. This version of “treason” is good enough.

Political theater and political stunts are commonplace in our past. We understand that a senator standing alone with the dictionary, encyclopedia or recipe book and blathering on and on to prevent legislation from being voted upon is “just filibustering,” something permitted in some circumstances by Senate rules that enables a single senator to halt the progress of legislation even if everyone else in the United States wants it to pass. Nothing like political theater or “stuntery” is going on here. No, the president of the United States and a large group of elected Republican congressmen and senators are trying to use blunt force to simply discard the results of the 2020 election and declare Donald Trump the winner (and possibly president for life).

This action has been labeled, correctly in my view, as a “threat to the republic.” See Michael Gerson’s piece in the Washington Post (https://wapo.st/3oaRmi4),

In the cause of his own advancement, the senator from Missouri is willing to endorse the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans — particularly voters of color — and justify the attempted theft of an election. He is willing to credit malicious lies that will poison our democracy for generations. The fulfillment of Hawley’s intention — the ultimate overturning of the election — would be the collapse of U.S. self-government. The attempt should be a source of shame

Gerson goes on to note that Donald Trump,

rose to prominence in the GOP by spreading racist lies about President Barack Obama’s birthplace. Now, he is making the acceptance of conspiratorial myths about Biden’s legitimacy into a test of GOP fidelity. And Trump has made room in his party for even more extreme versions of his method, involving the accusations that Democratic leaders are pedophiles: “Stop the steal” and QAnon are on the same spectrum of vile lunacy. This is the type of politics that Hawley is enabling — a form of politics that abolishes politics. A contest of policy visions can result in compromise. The attempt to delegitimize your opponent requires their political annihilation. And a fight to the political death is always conducted in the shadow of possible violence.

I part company with Mr. Gerson regarding what should be done about this. Certainly, he is right in calling for rejection of Hawley’s self-serving treachery. Maybe, though I doubt it, he is right in suggesting we praise the handful of Republicans who, as of today anyway, indicate dissent from the Trump-at-all-costs version of politics that Hawley promotes. Republicans, like Trump himself, are all too transactional in their support, so that the likes of Romney, Murkowski and some others still vote with Trump/McConnell almost all the time. They should get no reward in public or political acclaim for doing the self-evidently right thing now.

In my view, what I have chosen to call treason should become a standard label associated with those who have made their choice of Trump over the country, over democracy and over commitment to freedom and opportunity for all Americans. It should be part of their identification in the media along with party and geographical affiliation. Their names should reside in history alongside Benedict Arnold. They should be reminded regularly in the House and Senate chambers that their traitorous conduct has been noted and will never be forgiven. And, of course, every available resource should be devoted to removing them from office as soon as possible, through election and, in appropriate cases, criminal investigation and prosecution.

The time for politics-as-usual is over. To be clear, I am not suggesting a Democratic political vendetta but an aggressive and definitive legal response to overt acts plainly intended to overturn an election judged fair by all 50 states and multiple courts (including judges appointed by Trump). The fact that the effort is being executed in the halls of Congress does not excuse it. There is no excuse. Brute force politics must be met with a brute force legal response. I leave the details to others with the skill and knowledge to do it. Enough was enough long ago.