Guest Post Response: "Peter made a compelling, if infuriating, argument."

Here was yesterday's audacious idea:

In 20 years the January 6 attack on the Capitol will be celebrated the way we celebrate the Boston Tea Party.

The Capitol rioters were advancing a new constitutional system for America: serial dictatorship.

The Boston Tea Party was citizen direct action. It was illegal and destructive. But Americans celebrate it because it was part of a process of forming a new government. We won the war, so we write the history and celebrate the milestones. 

President Trump, by his willful and energetic flouting of laws, and his contempt and disregard of the checks and balances written into the Constitution -- and by his getting away with most of it -- is creating a new de facto system of government. The president is a strongman, a dictator, the CEO, limited only by impeachment and conviction, an impossible burden in a two-party environment, unless the president really, really screws up. This new form of government is settling into place. It was ratified by Trump's election in 2024. A majority of voters are OK with an elected strongman. After all, Congress is worthless and someone needs to take charge.

I am unhappy about this, but it is what is happening.

John Shutkin is a college classmate. He is a retired corporate attorney with experience both at Big Law firms and as in-house general counsel for two large accounting firms. He jokes that the photo shows him to be an "old timer."

Shutkin is holding up the time-keeping device at a 55th college reunion panel 

Guest Post by John Shutkin

My college classmate and friend Peter Sage is one of the most open-minded people I know. And I say that as 95-percent a compliment. After all, as a litigator for many years, I am used to starting legal analyses with the phrase, “On the one hand….,” so I have enormous professional respect for such a viewpoint. My reservation is only because, in my view, open-mindedness should be waived on occasion, especially in extraordinary times. Sometimes there are simply black-and-white issues and, as to those issues, to be blunt, I am right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. And yes; I’m still open-minded enough to know there are people who feel the same way who are on the opposite side of the issue. But they’re wrong.

Which brings me to Peter’s latest post, “What if school children are taught that the January 6 rioters were heroes?” Of course, Peter gives away the game as to where his heart really lies by using the term “rioters,” rather than a more neutral word like “participants,” but I do appreciate his forcing us to think about this issue and making some compelling, if infuriating, arguments. And certainly there are good examples, like the Boston Tea Party which he cites, where “heroes” and “rioters” depended mainly on which side of the Pond one lived on. And, indeed, even in 1773, there were plenty of Loyalists in the Colonies who had strong criticism of the Tea Party “participants.”

Moreover, I am well aware of the observation (misattributed to Churchill, but still valid) that “History is written by the victors.” And, more specifically as to January 6th, we are already seeing clear evidence of Trump and his MAGA followers, both in the federal and red-state governments, trying to re-write history into their fever dream of European white male Christian heroism. Here’s the most recent example: CNN.

And Peter is also correct in noting that Trump has proved that the US Constitution allows for this country to have an elected dictator as president who is both willing and capable of such an historical re-write. Simply put, the Founding Fathers never believed that a megalomaniacal President, an enabling Supreme Court and a feckless Congress would allow it. Jennifer Rubin aptly noted this exact point in her recent column, “Founders Maybe Weren’t Geniuses,” channeling Larry David’s equal parts hilarious and terrifying episode of “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness”: Contrarian News.  

As Larry delicately put it in his tag line. “We’re f*cked.” And, of course, Trump’s pardoning of all the January 6 rioters (for that is what they were) and his equally odious effort to create a $1.776 billion slush fund (note the non-coincidental amount) for them underscores that this is precisely what he is trying to do with regard to that horrific, treasonous event.

Finally, if one wants analysis of this phenomenon that is substantially older and viewed with more gravitas than Larry, one can always look to “1984.” As Orwell famously concluded: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

In short, full credit to Peter for acknowledging what we are currently seeing, no matter how much we in the fact-based universe know that it is both entirely wrong and incredibly dangerous. To put it in Larry’s vernacular, “It’s total bullsh*t.”

As for me, I am much more closed-minded than Peter, but I like to consider myself at least an optimistic realist rather than a despondent cynic. As such, I look for inspiration in MLK’s famous declaration, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And I’d like to think that that arc begins on November 3 of this year (Election Day) and starts to truly soar on January 20, 2029.

Otherwise, we’re f*cked.

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