Heroes of the Republic

A few people in a few key places saved our democracy.

They were under pressure to buckle. They didn't. 

The January 6 attack on the Capitol was a culmination of a long campaign to stay in office regardless of the outcome of the election. Trump had support from within his own party for this. From long before the election he said it would be rigged against him, that polls showing him to be unpopular were wrong, and that there would be massive voter fraud. He said he would be the legitimate president, whatever happened in the election. 

Senatorial support for the insurrection crowd

Democrats have a hard time believing anyone supports this vulgar, narcissistic demagogue. They misunderstand and underestimate Trump's appeal. Throughout history charismatic demagogues led mass movements, and Trump was bad at governing but superb at motivating crowds and disciplining dissent within his party. Don Junior told the January 6 Stop the Steal crowd that it was Trump's GOP.  He warned senators and house members that they will "be voting on things in the coming hours" and that "we all are watching." He said, "These guys better fight for Trump, because if they're not, guess what? I'm going to be in your backyard in a couple of months!!"

It was a credible threat. We saw what would happen to Lindsay Graham. He was harassed in an airport: "You traitor, you traitor, you traitor, you traitor. It will be like this forever, wherever you go. You piece of shit. You human garbage." It goes on. https://youtu.be/ndWV63wMGTw   Graham switched back immediately to defending Trump.

This political pressure is the context for the failure of the Article One checks and balances on Trump. Elected Republicans supported their party--even in the face of an assault on our republic's system of government. 

But it turns out the republic survived. Here is who could have could have crumbled under that pressure but did not. We owe them.

1. The United States military. In the immediate aftermath of the Bible-in-the-park photo shoot, General Milley issued a statement saying that his presence there was a mistake, done out of a failure to realize that a campaign event was taking place. Then, after the election, a bi-partisan group of ten former Secretaries of Defense signed a joint letter re-affirming the norms and expectations for military officers:

Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.

2. State election officials. Trump and his supporters leaned heavily on them with a mix of threats and flattery. Trump urged Georgia's election officials to "find" votes. Trump and his supporters urged election officials at every level to move the decision from the administrative job of counting votes to a political body, the legislature, to assure a result. They refused. 

They faced legal and professional risk. Declaring that the election they supervised was fraudulent would have created an evidence problem. How would they "find" bad votes to dismiss without being discovered in the eventual re-audits. Plus there is the element of professional duty and pride. Their careers were built around administering elections, without regard to politics and outcome. They were being asked to un-do and reverse the very purpose of their careers. The pressure was an insult.

3. The judiciary. Judges demanded evidence. Some may have welcomed a different result, but they required a factual and evidentiary basis. They needed to see fraud in order to find fraud. They didn't, so they rejected the Trump lawsuits. 

4. Professionals in the Justice Department. Attorney General William Barr's surprising resignation with four weeks to run in the term is now understandable. It was co-incident with the abrupt resignation of the U.S. Attorney for Atlanta. Each was being pressured by Trump to "do something" to overturn the vote in Georgia. Barr's replacement, the Deputy AG Jeffrey Rosen, immediately came under the same pressure. The New York Times reports that a subordinate, Jeffrey Clark, offered to take over the department and then represent to the Georgia legislature that the Justice Department now considered there to be a basis for overturning the election.  

Rosen got a meeting at the White House with a group Justice Departmental leaders. They agreed as a group to resign in protest if this took place. It would be a new "Saturday Night Massacre." Such an event would define what would be taking place as an attempt to subvert justice. Trump backed off.

The republic survived.

Writers of the Constitution imagined and feared a demagogue, that great threat to democratic government. The Constitution worked.

Division of power to the states. States choose electors on their own. States that came under pressure were fighting to preserve their own autonomy and power.

Congress' power of the purse meant that the military has always understood itself to have two constituencies, both the executive Commander in Chief and Congress that supplies oversight and funding. The result is a tradition of non-partisan, nonpolitical military, indebted to many. That meant that General Flynn's martial law proposal did not find fertile ground with the military.

Article One legislative check worked, but imperfectly. Madison anticipated "factions" but not political parties. Republican legislators backed the leader of their party, not the independence of their Article One power.  The presence of a Democratic majority in the House frustrated what might have been an easy path to get the Congress to dismiss the states' electoral votes.

The Civil Service Act came a century after the Constitution, but it helped establish the notion that the federal and state administrative departments are non-partisan and professional except at the top policy positions. This is an ideal and expectation--not always observed in practice--but it establishes a norm.

We got through this.