Threat to Democracy

I created a post last year which I feel now is important to turn back to in order to make excerpts from it and to highlight portions of what it contained.

The post was essentially an article, a guest opinion piece in the New York Times, written by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors of government at Harvard, entitled “Democracy’s Assassins Always Have Accomplices.” Salt Lake Tribune reprinted their essay on 10 September 2023. Since many of my audience do not read the Salt Lake Tribune, I now realize that what the original authors wrote may not have reached them. Therefore, I am summarizing the earlier post and emphasizing some content which I feel is crucial today. If you find this essay unnecessary, I apologize for the inconvenience–but maybe you should read it anyway.

The original piece in the NY Times spent considerable time placing our political situation today in the context of European and South American attempts to establish dictatorships. Their entire essay focused upon the role that political insiders play in the success or failure of a planned takeover of government and the resulting destruction of democratic government.

I wish to focus on the current American experience. Levitsky and Ziblatt write that in the first Republican primary debate in the summer of 2023, all the candidates were asked to indicate by raising their hands if they would support Donald Trump’s campaign even if he were “convicted in a court of law.” At that time, Mr. Trump was facing trials. One trial concerned his leading the conspiracy to overturn the election of 2020 by the hands of the mob which stormed the capitol building on 6 January 2021 in order to prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College votes. Another trial focused on Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election by interfering in Georgia’s tallying its votes. In answer to the question, all the Republican candidates on stage raised their hands. As Levitsky and Ziblatt write, “The greatest threat to our democracy comes. . . from the ordinary politicians. . . who protect and enable . . . [one who seeks to overturn democracy].”

Ordinarily, concession speeches occur within days of an election–almost always by Thanksgiving. Mr. Trump did not ever acknowledge he lost the popular vote and the Electoral College vote of the 2020 election. Mr. Pence waited until mid-January 2021 to “congratulate” or acknowledge that Kamala Harris had won the vote to become Vice President of the United States. Levitsky and Ziblatt cite the Republican Accountability Project, “a Republican pro-democracy watchdog group,” which reviewed speeches of 261 Republican congressmen and found that 221 of them either doubted the presidential election results or would not acknowledge that President Biden won the election. “That’s 35 % [of House Republicans].” In the House certification of the electoral College votes, conducted during and shortly after the riot, “nearly two-thirds of House Republicans voted against certification.” Election deniers among Republican insiders clearly outnumbered democracy.

The “Insider Accomplices” had other opportunities to betray democracy. Following the impeachment of Mr. Trump for the 6 January insurrection, Senate Republicans refused to convict him. Since conviction by the Senate would have legally barred him from running again for president, his conviction would have freed the Republican Party from this man, allowing it to conduct a legitimate primary for president. By acquitting Mr. Trump, Republican senators acquiesced in his efforts to overthrow democracy; they functioned as enablers, as accomplices in that attempted overthrow.

Slightly later, Republicans in Congress had the opportunity of working with Democrats to establish an independent commission to investigate the insurrection of 6 January. Congressional Republican leadership rejected such a commission. A congressional commission was the only alternative to doing nothing. A few Republicans did participate in the congressional investigation–kudos to Representatives Lynn Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Republican leaders’ refusal doomed an independent commission and doomed the congressional commission’s findings to be branded as “political.”

The alternatives which Levitsky and Ziblatt offer no longer exist or are now highly unlikely. Barring the unlikely occurrence of Republican leaders publicly endorsing Kamala Harris for president, the only sure way of preventing Mr. Trump from potentially winning the election is for rank-and-file Republicans to vote conscience rather than party loyalty, by voting for Ms. Harris to preserve democracy. Levitsky and Ziblatt sum up the situation we face quite cogently: “Democracy’s assassins always have accomplices among mainstream politicians in the halls of power.” If your Republican representative or senator has not performed their duty to protect the Republican party from Mr. Trump, vote for someone else in November.

[An aside: Read “Project 2025,” available on several sites via a Google search on the web. The search will even lead you to Mr. Trump’s denial that he will implement it. It will also show you the detailed ideals of the far right to dismantle the democratic foundation of the United States.]

Levitsky and Ziblatt’s original essay as published in the Salt Lake Tribune is available on my website; in the Tribune’s archives, for those of you who have access to its archives; and in the archives of the New York Times.