Today, There Is No Center

Yesterday, I was shocked and sad.

Today, I am furious. Furious at the leaders in the Republican Party who, for years, have spread lies about the integrity of our elections. Furious at the cynical Members of Congress who sow distrust for our institutions, acting out an antidemocratic theater to benefit them electorally. Furious at the Executive Branch staffers who stood idly by, pretending to be the “adults in the room” as this disease in our body politic has grown.

Most of all, I am furious at the watchers who have enabled this disease by donating, supporting, and voting for this Administration.

These are the people who will pretend that the elections were illegitimate. When confronted with truth, they will claim “many people say . . .” while refusing to look at the clear evidence. They will say they’re too busy to read about politics, even as they are not too busy to support an active attempt to overthrow our democracy. They will ignore the fact that Congress has already certified the election of its members — conducted through the same electoral processes as the presidential election — with no meaningful objections. “It would confound reason,” a Republican Congressman wrote, “if the presidential results of these states were to face objection while the congressional results of the same process escaped public scrutiny.” And escape scrutiny they did, because all in Congress know that the elections were not fraudulent.

These are the people who will pretend that political violence is a problem of “both sides.” They act as if invading the Capitol to disrupt a constitutionally mandated process in the transfer of power is the same as demonstrating in the streets on behalf of the constitutional guarantee of the equal protection of the laws. They will ignore what their own eyes tell them. They would believe conspiracies peddled by dishonest politicians — Antifa, they will say, dressed up as Trump supporters to incite violence — rather than see the proximate causes in front of them: Rudy Giuliani, who told the President’s supporters to engage in “trial by combat”; the words of the President himself, egging his supporters to “fight like hell” in order to “take back our country.”

These are the people who will pretend that America is a color-blind country, where “things have changed dramatically” from the days of slavery and Jim Crow. They will ignore the fact that, on a single day in June, 289 people in D.C. were arrested for protesting antiblack police violence, while only fifty-two were arrested yesterday for storming the seat of our government and defying a curfew. They will ignore how some security officers were happy to support riotous insurrectionists, letting people who broke the law simply walk away. They will pretend that this sedition was a “protest” that had nothing to do with race, ignoring the noose and the Confederate battle flag brought to the Capitol by the insurrectionists. They will conveniently ignore the historical symbolism and how at least some of the insurrectionists were inspired by Confederates who had engaged in treason to build a government whose “cornerstone,” in the words of its only Vice President, “rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.”

These are the people who will pretend that they were unaware of the President’s authoritarian impulses, who will say that he has been treated unfairly by the “Mainstream Media” and that, anyways, they simply opposed socialism. They will pretend that their willful ignorance of the President’s disdain for constitutional governance is excusable because at least he was choosing “good judges” for the courts and cutting taxes.

These are the people who will now feign disgust at the insurrectionists but who will return to the party of “law and order” despite nearly half of its members supporting the storming of the Capitol. They will claim that it is a party of conservatives and constitutionalists when the insurrectionists openly claim to be engaging in a “revolution,” wearing hoodies that said “civil war” and “Camp Auschwitz” on them. They will act as if the President did not say that he “love[d]” these “very special” people, just as they will forget how the President told a white supremacist militia group to “stand by” on national television. They will purport to support the Constitution of 1789, to defend states’ rights and gun rights, while excusing an insurrection ordered by the chief executive — who takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” — against the First Branch, the branch that Madison thought would “necessarily predominate[,]” the branch that is closest to the People.

In most times, democratic politics is messy and complex, and issues are colored in shades of grey rather than black and white. In most times, we should seek nuance and cordial, rational deliberation. In most times, we should take care not to judge too quickly or harshly. In most times, we should seek forbearance and compromise, emphasizing our shared rather than divergent values. In most times, we should come together and welcome those who add diversity to our thoughts and ideals.

This is not one of those times.

Right now, there are only two sides: those who support the Constitution and those who do not. There is one side — one that seems dominant in an entire political party — that has sought to subvert the bedrock of our democracy in service of one man: the outgoing President. It has trafficked in his delusions, allowing him to relentlessly attack our elections infrastructure even when it is administered by members of his own party. It is quiet when he forever claims to have “more evidence” of widespread voter fraud even though he has never come forward with evidence in court. It does not respond when he tells its membership that America will be lost if they do not act. Act they did, and his party alone bears the responsibility for their reckless desecration of the Capitol that left four people dead and over fifty police officers injured.

There is another side, and it comprises much more than just Democrats but also dissenting Republicans and independents, Libertarians and Greens. It comprises those who support constitutional governance, who recognize the legitimacy of our electoral institutions and who decry naysayers that seek to replace facts with politically convenient falsehoods. It comprises those who will recognize the legitimate transfer of power and who will commit to seeing that there is justice done for the crimes committed against the Constitution.

Lincoln recognized in 1858, just a few years before the Civil War, that a fundamentally divided nation cannot long endure through dubious compromises. “A house divided against itself,” he paraphrased from the Bible, “cannot stand.”

Leading Northern voices at the time sought to compromise with Southern slave owners. They sought to let states determine, for themselves, whether to allow slavery in their borders. Their language — couched in terms of the “sacred right of self government” — perverted the moral foundation of the Union: that “all men are created equal.” And in feigning neutrality, the supporters of so-called “self government” enabled the spread of slavery, for their actions served “to educate and mould public opinion . . . to not care whether slavery is voted down or voted up.”

Lincoln understood that policies of “self government” jettisoned our moral responsibilities. As long as we are not slave owners, Northerns could tell themselves, we do not partake in that evil. Let others choose to do as they will, and let them be judged. Why can’t we just compromise and go back to our everyday lives?

Our twenty-first century sensibilities recoil at the thought. Surely we cannot compromise with the likes of slave owners and white supremacists.

There are few political values that should be genuinely non-negotiable. The imperative of the abolition of slavery is one. Commitment to constitutional, democratic governance is another. We must not waver from that commitment. We must not compromise.

There must be consequences for attacking the Capitol. There must be consequences for inciting an insurrection to attempt to subvert a sacred constitutional process. There must be consequences for actively seeking to destroy our higher law.

In this moment, we cannot simply “turn the page.” Congress has a duty to impeach and convict the sitting President for advocating sedition and for breaking his sacred oath to defend the Constitution. The Senate has an obligation not only to remove the sitting President but to bar him from ever again holding an office of the United States. Anything less is constitutional abdication. Anything less sets a precedent that advocating insurrection will have no consequences. Anything less would be an affront to law-abiding people and democratic governance everywhere.

* * * * *

I feel it would be inappropriate to write my normal “rose, bud, thorn,” but I did make a resolution to write each week about what I’m grateful for. I’m grateful to be safe from this terrible pandemic (living by myself makes it pretty easy to stay away from infection) and for my friends who have helped me stay sane — especially over the last twenty-four hours.

Next week, I hope, will be a more normal post.