J. Michael Luttig is an orthodox conservative and loyal Republican, appointed to the federal bench by President Bush 41 and often mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee. So when he appeared before the Congressional committee investigating the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, his words of warning carried extra weight.
"Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to our democracy," Luttig asserted.
Don't just look backward, he was saying. Jan. 6 was not just an historical event. It's a precedent and a predicter for what could threaten democracy in the future.
In an essay for CNN, Luttig described Trump's Big Lie — that he'd really won the election — as a carefully calculated plan to cloak his real objective. "That objective is not somehow to rescind the 2020 election, as they would have us believe," wrote the former judge. "That's constitutionally impossible."
"Trump's and the Republicans' far more ambitious objective is to execute successfully in 2024 the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election if Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest," Luttig asserted. "The last presidential election was a dry run for the next."
Yes, the coup plotters failed last year. Yes, our democratic system survived their assault, in part because a cadre of courageous Republicans — federal judges, state legislators, election officials — placed the rule of law above partisan gain or loyalty to Trump.
But the insurrectionists are at it again. As The New York Times reports, "The potential for far-right Republicans to reshape the election systems of major battleground states is growing much closer to reality."
"The party's voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy," explained the Times. "In primary after primary, election deniers have ascended, signaling that Mr. Trump's falsehoods about the 2020 election have become deeply embedded in the Republican base."
For example, Republicans selected Doug Mastriano for governor in Pennsylvania and Jim Marchant for secretary of state in Nevada. Both continue to embrace Trump's lies about the last election and threaten to undermine the voting process in the next one. The Texas GOP passed a resolution last week calling Joe Biden the "acting" president who "was not legitimately elected."
But the Republican strategy of subversion goes far deeper. Law professor and election expert Richard Hasen wrote in the Washington Post: "The Republican Party is instructing volunteer poll workers on how to challenge voters on Election Day, teaching them to report any issues at polling places directly to GOP-affiliated lawyers rather than to their poll-worker superiors. This disruption of the chain of command in state election machinery could easily lead to chaos and confusion, which then could serve as an excuse for someone like Mastriano to claim that Trump is the real winner."
For well over 200 years, American elections have relied on a basic principle: the losers peacefully accept defeat. Trump and his followers represent a catastrophic departure from that history. They are not conservatives at all, but wild-eyed radicals. In the name of making America "great again," they are trashing the very traditions that ensure American greatness.
"We are in a dangerous place at the moment," Ben Berwick, counsel for the advocacy group Protect Democracy, told the Times. "There is a substantial faction in this country that has come to the point where they have rejected the premise that when we have elections, the losers of the elections acknowledge the right of the winner to govern."
That's why it's critical for Congress to pass a package of reforms, now being crafted by a bipartisan group of senators, to plug loopholes and clarify ambiguities that this "substantial faction" could exploit in the future to thwart the democratic process.
One rule would reinforce Mike Pence's insistence, in the face of Trump's pressures, that the vice president has no authority to alter or question election outcomes. Another would make it much harder for members of Congress to challenge results reported by the states. A third would strengthen the authority of the federal judiciary to overrule renegade state officials and legislatures that try to manipulate vote totals. States could also use financial help to protect election officials from harassment.
The danger to democracy is clear, and it is present. True conservatives have a profound duty to stand up to Trump and his followers and confront that danger.
Steven Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.
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