“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. . . . Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself, it invites anarchy.”
– Louis Brandeis
Friends,
I just watched the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
I suspect many of you declined to watch what you knew would be a spectacle of triumphant misinformation and arrogant denigration of his former opponents. It was that. Shamelessly and spectacularly so. And it included, as expected, a denunciation of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a denunciation of the rights of individuals to identify as different, and, for his followers, the reassuring message that God has chosen him to save America – especially from the hoards of violent immigrants besieging this country. Trump also made the astounding claim that he has survived and conquered more adversity than any other U.S. president in history. George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? FDR? If Trump weren’t so dangerous, all of this would seem a dark comedy of megalomania.
In fact, what we witnessed today was a coup. I grew up thinking that coups were overthrows of governments by conspiratorial juntas of disgruntled army officers, or, sometimes, violent revolutionary movements. Always one power dethroning another. Often one corrupt gang replacing another. But our coup was different. A man who maintained a lie about the 2016 election – that he had won – won the loyalty of millions of credulous sycophants who supported his lie. Many of them knowing full well that he had not won. But that is not where the coup was. The coup happened because the Supreme Court refused to invoke the 14th Amendment of the Constitution which forbids anyone who has taken part in or helped plan an insurrection from holding office:
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Trump engaged in, supported and helped inspire the Insurrection of January 6, 2020. There is no doubt about that. The Constitution is absolutely clear that he should never have been allowed to run for office. Our Supreme Court – either from cowardice or complicity or both – refused to disqualify him. The result is a coup. The man who took the oath of office today to defend the Constitution should be in jail for treason. For him the Constitution is an inconvenience to amassing power. The country – ours – whose politicians constantly remind us that our democracy is held in place, underpinned, by the rule of law, has chosen once again to ignore that law for fear of political disruption. The law is of no use whatever if it is not used when most needed.
When Barack Obama refused to prosecute the George Bush administration for war crimes for its preemptive war against Iraq in 2003, we witnessed the same fear to employ the law. There are many more such instances.
I don’t know what to advise in regard to this coup. One coup doesn’t deserve another.
But we need to recognize this fact. We need to recognize this official hypocrisy about the rule of law. We need to be aware that the dishonesty of many politicians and the Supreme Court has launched us – like a rogue spaceship – into a morally and legally very dark outer space. There is no clear recovery behavior for this kind of coup – except to begin by admitting it.
As my mother used to say, Don’t hold your breath! But in the meantime all the rest of us should redouble our efforts to act with compassion and love, to respect our differences, dedicate ourselves to non-partisan solutions to our critical environmental and economic issues. To have the courage to do what’s right. And refuse to obey illegitimate authority.
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Today, the day after his inauguration, Trump pardoned more than 1500 participants in the January 6, 2020 insurrection – some with trials pending but most who had already been convicted. By doing so Trump was, in effect, admitting that his lies and behavior led them to their violent acts. The pardon was another mockery of the law.