by Bryan H. Wildenthal (July 15, 2024)
(See Copyright & Permissions Note on Vita & Contact page.)
An Important Prefatory Note
The despicable July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was not only an attack on him personally, a criminal act of attempted murder, it was an attack on our democratic process and the constitutional rights of all Americans.
Let us all pause in grief and respect for Corey Comperatore, the ordinary American brutally murdered on July 13 while exercising his constitutional right to attend a political rally.
Since Republicans are proceeding today with their own political convention, and their party leaders have continued their own political messaging unabated since July 13, those of us who oppose Trump’s candidacy have the same right, despite the heavy hearts we all have, to proceed with explaining why voters must reject Trump’s candidacy.
This essay will now continue that conversation. I will also offer some thoughts on hypocritical Republican complaints about alleged “incendiary rhetoric” by Trump’s critics.
Don’t Take Our Word For It: Listen to Trump
When it comes to Donald Trump, we should all follow three wise words of advice by President Biden at the end of his July 11 press conference:
“Listen to him.”
Almost every time Trump opens his mouth he reveals who he is and reminds us of the threats he poses to this country and our constitutional form of government.
I posted an essay on July 9 on whether President Biden should continue to seek another term, noting that “the issue at the moment is not Trump. It is whether Biden has the capacity to lead a successful campaign against him.” The Democratic Party’s choice of nominees (remember, it’s a two-person ticket) remains an important issue.
For now, I want to review and build upon the points outlined in my July 9 essay about the stakes in this election.
But first, fellow voters: Please pay attention to the words and actions of Trump and his supporters. Check the facts. Consult reliable and independent sources of news and information. Be responsibly skeptical. Exercise your fundamental human right and capacity of independent thinking.
The extremists among Trump’s supporters, and there are many, pose grave concerns. But those of us who oppose Trump should always keep in mind that most of his supporters are not extremists nor ill-intentioned but rather (in my view) mistaken people of good will. Our goal must be to persuade people to vote against Trump.
I am mindful of President Biden’s admonition in his address to the nation last night, “to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We’re neighbors.” The president was surely inspired by the simple eloquence of the first Republican president, facing far worse divisions: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”
But we must also confront reality. We must confront the truth.
Trump, and many of his supporters, openly threaten to overthrow free and fair elections, to repeat their past efforts to nullify the votes of millions of Americans. They falsely claim voter “fraud” (among countless other brazen lies) and deny reality, facts, and science in numerous ways.
Trump, and many of his supporters, seek to impose on all Americans an extreme and twisted version of religious dogma known as “Christian Nationalism,” unrecognizable to most actual Christians (among whom are many of my beloved family members who believe they have few higher Christian duties this year than to defeat Trump).
Trump, and many of his supporters, seek “retribution” against their perceived enemies — their ugly and chilling word choice, not a word any leading Trump opponent has ever used — and they plan to enact cruel, dangerous, and extremist policies that would set back our nation by decades.
They intend to undermine or even destroy the NATO alliance that has safeguarded North American and European security for 75 years. This would grant an enormous, unearned, windfall victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the war-mongering dictator who is the most dangerous tyrant in the world today.
Putin invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked war of aggression, directly threatens much of Europe, has threatened all of humanity with nuclear saber-rattling, and has persistently interfered in the internal politics of the United States and other democracies, including intervening in favor of Trump’s presidential campaigns.
Incredible as it is to contemplate, Trump has publicly fawned over Putin — perhaps in gratitude for his support — and encouraged him to engage in aggression against our NATO allies. There are legal grounds to argue that Trump has, in effect, publicly declared his intent to commit treason in the event Putin attacks NATO.
Keep in mind that American soldiers serve in almost every NATO country and would be in harm’s way if Putin attacks.
The NATO Treaty, under our Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2), is part of “the supreme Law of the Land.” The Constitution imposes a mandatory duty on every president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Trump took an oath in January 2017 and would have to take one again in January 2025 (if he wins) to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”
(The latter provisions are in Article II, Sections 1 and 3. Article III, Section 3, defines “treason” not just as “levying War against” the United States but also as “adhering to [our] Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”)
Trump already violated his oath of office multiple times, meriting an unprecedented two impeachments during a single term — despite the cowardly and unpatriotic refusal of his Republican enablers in the Senate to hold him to account (conceding the one honest and patriotic Senate Republican in February 2020, and the seven in February 2021, who did vote to convict).
Trump would again violate his oath if, as he himself explicitly and repeatedly threatens, he scorns his constitutional duty to abide by NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense guarantee, which in effect defines an attack on any NATO country as the legal equivalent of an attack on the United States.
Let me say all that again in simpler terms:
Trump has repeatedly encouraged the Russian dictator butchering Ukrainians to attack our NATO allies, which would legally constitute an attack on the United States.
In sum, Trump (and many of his supporters) threaten to rip apart and destroy the fabric of our constitutional democracy, woven over centuries by the sacrifices of patriots who gave everything, including their lives in many cases, to preserve it for posterity.
Let’s also not forget that Trump is a criminal convicted by a jury of multiple felonies in a business fraud case. A judge imposed a $454 million judgment against him in an unrelated civil fraud case. And a jury in a civil case found him liable for defamation and sexual abuse. Additional criminal cases against him are still pending.
Oh … and by the way … if you’re deluding yourself that Trump might at least be kinda sorta okay on the economy — think again!
Trump is now being deceptively evasive — because he knows it’s unpopular — about exactly how much he supports the details of the “Project 2025” blueprint for a radical partisan takeover and political weaponization of the federal government. Keep in mind that Trump is fond of talking out of both sides of his mouth in a way that keeps supporters and opponents alike off-balance.
New York Times reporter Charlie Savage and his colleagues have documented Trump’s many statements, including but not limited to the details of “Project 2025,” which reveal his plans and intentions for a second term.
As I said in an essay published in late November 2020:
“There are many reasons why Trump is patently unfit for public office. Some were already obvious in 2016. Others have become more clear during his presidency: his corruption; his abuses of power; his compulsive dishonesty; his bigoted and bullying statements; his utter disdain for facts and the information he needs to do his job; his lazy refusal to make even a pretense of the hard work required.”
“We are now reminded of the one reason that rules them all — the one insight that should at last be apparent to any rational observer: Trump does not believe in democracy.”
“Even worse: When he lost his bid for reelection, he demonstrated his willingness to destroy democracy as he saw he could not bend it to his will.”
I also linked the threats Trump poses with regard to Russia and foreign policy with his threats to democracy at home. I continue to believe those are merely two sides of the same coin. I said:
“Trump’s behavior [in seeking to overthrow the 2020 election], though a shocking break from two centuries of American history, has ample precedents elsewhere. It recalls the statements and actions of military dictators, communist rulers, and fascist demagogues around the world as democracy has struggled to gain a lasting foothold. Those struggles continue, but Trump has dealt them a devastating setback. Dictators around the world are now grinning horribly. Many people, across party lines, have commented on Trump’s fondness for authoritarian rulers, even those who threaten American interests. Trump clearly envies the unchecked dictatorial powers that our constitutional system does not allow him to wield.”
Mind you: I wrote and published all that more than a month before the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by extremist supporters incited by Trump himself, who then did nothing for hours to stop them — and now calls those convicted of serious crimes that day (who severely injured many police officers) “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots” and hints he would pardon them as president.
Yes, the stakes in the November 5 election are very high indeed.
A Necessary Detour on “Incendiary Rhetoric”
Leading Republican politicians, including Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio — now the Republican vice presidential nominee — and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, have tried to exploit the assassination attempt for political gain by blaming it on alleged “incendiary rhetoric” by President Biden and other Democrats.
That is recklessly unfounded — and blatantly hypocritical. The rhetoric of leading Republicans has been far more incendiary and irresponsible. They have seized out of context a comment by President Biden that it was “time to put Trump in the bull’s-eye.” But Biden merely used the phrase in a private phone call to supporters, to refer to redirecting attention from the dispute over his own nomination back to the general election.
Just a few months ago, Trump himself promoted a bizarre and truly unhinged claim that President Biden and the FBI deliberately threatened his life in connection with the search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents. These were documents Trump illegally retained as a private citizen while deceptively defying repeated requests to return them. He was indicted and faces criminal charges for that, as everyone knows.
Trump’s accusation was based on a ludicrous twisting of routine boilerplate language that actually restrains and limits any use of deadly force by FBI agents. The FBI carefully timed the search for when Trump was out of town and conducted it in a low-key manner, precisely to avoid embarrassing him with any confrontation!
The same language was used when the FBI searched President Biden’s residences for classified documents!
Yet Trump recklessly asserted that “Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE” — adding the libelously false claim that “Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out.”
It is tempting to dismiss this as simply insane or stupid. But that would be far too naive. It is clear that Trump makes such dishonest claims with malicious and politically astute calculation. Trump knew that after his earlier reckless criticisms of the FBI, right after the 2022 search, an unhinged supporter attempted a violent attack on an FBI office, resulting in his death.
With claims like this, just as he did on January 6, 2021, Trump has continued to knowingly incite violence.
After the July 13 assassination attempt, a Republican Member of Congress, Mike Collins of Georgia, libelously asserted — based on no evidence whatsoever — that “Biden sent the orders” for Trump’s assassination.
Given the understandably angry national mood after the July 13 attack, with retaliatory violence an obvious risk, this was far more “incendiary” than any statement any comparably prominent Democrat has ever made about Trump.
Has the rhetoric of Trump’s opponents really been unduly harsh in response to what constantly comes out of his own mouth?
Earth to Republicans: You can’t whine about civility and then nominate a candidate who suggests a former top leader of your own party should be subjected to a military tribunal for simply doing her job as a Member of Congress!
You can’t credibly declare it out-of-bounds for your opponents to protest your calls for such “retribution” or raise alarms over your efforts to nullify elections (only the ones you lose). That didn’t stop after 2020. The losing Arizona Republican candidate for governor in 2022 has continued this year to try to overturn that election, even as she now runs for the Senate! Trump himself still claims he won in 2020!
Do we just have to remain silent in the face of such outrages, or speak about them only in polite and dulcet tones? Do we have to politely pretend these are just normal political disagreements?
They are NOT and we will NOT be bullied or gaslighted into silence about them!
Let me give one more example. During those tense days in November and December of 2020, when we all wondered exactly how far Trump might go in trying to overthrow his election defeat, did any prominent Democrats or leftwing progressives suggest he might stage a military coup?
NO — that suggestion was raised by Trump’s own supporter and former National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn!
Flynn, one of the nation’s most prominent retired military officers, called for martial law — in effect a military coup — to reverse the election and keep Trump in power. The proposal he endorsed called for the military to seize ballot boxes and “suspend the Constitution and civilian control.”
And Flynn threatened violent civil war if this was not done. Strictly speaking, if Trump had followed Flynn’s advice, that would have been a “self-coup” (an “autogolpe” in Spanish), like the one in Peru in 1992.
Flynn remains an active Trump supporter to this day even as he and his family exploit his celebrity in classic grifter fashion.
Even after Flynn pushed that shocking proposal, Trump — who pardoned him for crimes trying to cover up contacts with Russia — invited him to the White House in December 2020 along with conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell. They apparently discussed various outlandish plots and schemes to overturn the election.
Trump continues to suggest he will appoint Flynn to a position in his new administration if he wins.
Was this episode hyped by the supposedly “liberal” media or Democratic politicians? Far from it! The New York Times and other major media did report on Trump’s meeting with Flynn and Powell (as my link above indicates). But major media gave amazingly little if any coverage at the time to Flynn’s military coup threat — an idea so un-American it has long been whispered about as a far-fetched fear that “could never happen here.”
The only useful contemporaneous news link I have found is to the Daily Beast. Only in February and December 2021 and February 2022 did the New York Times — that favorite “liberal” whipping boy of the Right and supposedly the nation’s “newspaper of record” — finally (belatedly) report on it.
If progressive politicians and the allegedly liberal media are really so “incendiary” in their treatment of Trump, wouldn’t they have flogged this story in real time from here to Timbuktu?
Not that it was or is in any way improper to raise alarms about such threats to our constitutional democracy. It is, in fact, a disturbing failure of our political and media culture that so few Americans, to this day, are well-informed or even aware of this episode.
The Past Is Prologue
Every national election feels important but Americans have faced more dangerous trials in the past. In the 1860 and 1864 elections the very preservation of the Union was at stake along with the literal freedom of millions of people. One of my specialties as a law professor is the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction, especially the 14th Amendment ratified in 1868, so I tend to think in those historical terms.
Pause and recall that the Republican Party is not just one of our two major political parties. It is arguably the greatest political party in the history of the United States and perhaps the world: the party of Abraham Lincoln; the party that saved the Union, that opposed the expansion of slavery and then abolished it; the party that succeeded in amending the Constitution to guarantee equality and voting rights without regard to race and extend due process and essential liberties to all people nationwide.
It has not, in modern times, been my party. But it was still, until recently, a home for respectable (however debatable) conservative ideas — and for some near-great presidents like Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However much we may criticize such Republican leaders in various ways, I and many Democrats appreciate their virtues and contributions to our politics.
It is demoralizing and shocking that this party will shortly nominate for president — for the third time — a person so utterly unworthy of that honor.
The 2020 election restored a measure of sanity to our politics. But everything achieved in 2020 could be undone this November. There are good grounds for concern that Trump this year is an even more dangerous and unhinged politician than he was in 2016 or 2020.
We have been warned — repeatedly — by Trump himself.
Listen to him.
P.S. And please vote. One of my sisters, Professor Lora Wildenthal — one of her specialties is the worrisomely relevant field of modern German history — has circulated a timely reminder: “Calling all eligible U.S. voters: Elections in the U.S. are decided by turnout these days. Not to vote is still … voting! Not voting means helping whomever you most disagree with, because you are withholding support from whomever you least disagree with.”
The Skeptical Professor 