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'American democracy's most dangerous enemy': Author says appetite for 'fascism' rages on in post-Trump GOP
January 27, 2021
During Donald Trump's four years as president of the United States, many Never Trump conservatives argued that Trump's movement was not motivated by traditional conservatism and a belief in smaller government, but by a longing for authoritarianism. Trump's presidency, much to the delight of Never Trumpers, ended on January 20 when President Joe Biden was sworn in. But author/attorney Richard North Patterson, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on January 26, warns that an appetite for fascism is still alive and well in the Republican Party.
"Social science suggests that a majority of Trump voters are instinctive authoritarians," Patterson explains. "But one cannot separate Trumpism from the inherent character of the party which spawned him…. The word 'fascist' too often precedes anti-historical histrionics, but the term is useful in deconstructing the devolution of Republicanism into the minoritarian-authoritarian saboteur of pluralist democracy."
<p>Patterson goes on to say that efforts to overturn the democratic results of the 2020 presidential election underscore the authoritarian nature of Trump's movement.</p><p>"Consider the predicates of nascent fascism," Patterson writes. "Trump relentlessly exploited a sense of decline, humiliation and victimization among marginalized Whites, even as he evoked America's loss of strength and purity. His supporters' 'redemptive violence' at our capital was preceded in Michigan, as one example, by armed incursion the state legislature and an abortive effort to kidnap and execute the governor. While claiming to protect democracy, the GOP persistently undermines the right of disfavored groups to vote."</p><p>Patterson notes that although there was no truth to Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, that didn't stop countless Republicans from promoting them.</p><p>"Classical fascism conditions its followers to accept 'the big lie' which unifies their discontents and justifies their leaders' actions," Patterson explains. "So, in 2020, did the GOP. Granted that the big Republican lie did not equal Hitler's poisonous assertion that perfidious Jews stabbed Germany in the back, but the GOP's lie to its base was, nonetheless, breathtakingly ambitious: that an unfathomable conspiracy involving thousands of state and local officials and judges, many Republicans, had stolen the presidency from Donald Trump — from <em>them</em>."</p><p>Patterson notes some dangerous trends in the post-Trump Administration GOP — for example, he points out, "polling shows that a full one-third of Trump supporters" believe that the violent "mob" that stormed the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6 "represented their grievances." And he adds that "more broadly, half of the (Republican) Party's electorate believes that GOP lawmakers did not go far enough in attempting to overturn the election."</p><p>"One envisions Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton competing with Donald Trump, Jr. for the Republican nomination in 2024, with Nikki Haley straining to put an anodyne non-White veneer on the party's authoritarian meta-narrative," Patterson argues. "It is far too little to say that the GOP has lost its way. Quite deliberately, it has become American democracy's most dangerous enemy."</p>
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There's a glaring problem with the GOP's bid to stop Trump's impeachment trial in its tracks
January 27, 2021
Despite widespread demands that the U.S. Senate hold former President Donald Trump accountable for helping to incite a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol just before leaving office, all but five Republican senators on Tuesday voted to invalidate the trial as unconstitutional—a move that ultimately failed but portends poorly for those hoping for conviction.
Just 10 House Republicans joined with Democrats earlier this month to impeach Trump—the only president to be impeached twice—for his role in sparking the January 6 attack on Congress. House impeachment managers delivered the article to the Senate on Monday.
<p>While senators were sworn in on Tuesday for Trump's second impeachment trial, arguments aren't set to start until February 9.</p><p>Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday <a href="https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1354163711917903872" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">claimed</a> that the trial is unconstitutional and forced a procedural vote on the matter. Paul's move "might seem like a silly procedural gambit, but it's important," <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported</a> <em>Politico</em>, because it forces GOP senators to go on record about whether they think the trial should be allowed to proceed.</p><p>Only Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.), and Pat Toomey (Pa.) joined with Democrats to oppose Paul's effort, which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) supported. The <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=117&session=1&vote=00008" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">55-45 vote</a> signals that the necessary two-thirds of senators do not support a conviction.</p><p>The Senate vote was swiftly condemned, including by House Democrats who supported Trump's impeachment:</p><iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1354173067556171778&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F01%2F26%2Fafter-delaying-trump-impeachment-trial-all-5-gop-senators-vote-favor-saying-now-its&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; box-sizing: inherit; visibility: visible; width: 521px; height: 417px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1354166916621996032&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F01%2F26%2Fafter-delaying-trump-impeachment-trial-all-5-gop-senators-vote-favor-saying-now-its&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; box-sizing: inherit; visibility: visible; width: 521px; height: 343px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><p>As <em>MSNBC</em>'s Chris Hayes <a href="https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1354174459461197824" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">noted</a>: "McConnell delayed the trial and then voted in favor of a point or order to dismiss it because it was...starting too late."</p><p>Despite the timing of the House impeachment vote, McConnell, while he was still Senate majority leader in the immediate wake of the attack, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/13/fascist-enabling-coward-mcconnell-declines-reconvene-senate-trial-house-moves" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">refused</a> to start a trial before President Joe Biden's inauguration.</p><p>Ahead of the Tuesday vote, Paul <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/26/rand-paul-impeachment-462655" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">told</a> reporters: "I think there will be enough support on it to show there's no chance they can impeach the president... If 34 people support my resolution that this is an unconstitutional proceeding, it shows they don't have the votes and we're basically wasting our time."</p><p>Paul tried to claim that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-presidency-trump-impeachment-1-26-21/h_bbbcc5bd4d2937830e4eb29804e46452" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">responded</a> by pointing to Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the "removal of office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office honor."</p><p>"If the framers intended impeachment to merely be a vehicle to remove sitting officials from their office they would not have included that additional provision, disqualification from future office," he said.</p><p>"The language is crystal clear without any ambiguity," Schumer said. "The history and precedent is clear. The Senate has the power to try former officials, and the reasons for that are basic common sense."</p><iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1354174974790168577&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F01%2F26%2Fafter-delaying-trump-impeachment-trial-all-5-gop-senators-vote-favor-saying-now-its&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; box-sizing: inherit; visibility: visible; width: 521px; height: 365px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><p><em>Common Dreams</em> reported earlier Tuesday that polls <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/26/majority-us-want-senate-convict-trump-bar-him-holding-office-ever-again-poll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">continue to show </a>that the American public supports convicting Trump and barring him from ever holding office again. A survey conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from January 21 to January 24 found 56% of Americans approve of the House impeaching Trump.</p><p>That polling results also showed that 52% of the U.S. public wants the Senate to convict Trump on the impeachment charge. Additionally, when those surveyed were told that a conviction must precede a ban on Trump holding office in the future, support for the Senate convicting the ex-president jumped from 52% to 55%.</p><p>As the advocacy group Stand Up America <a href="https://twitter.com/StandUpAmerica/status/1354175029546770434" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">put it</a> in a tweet Tuesday: "Convicting Donald Trump for inciting a white supremacist insurrection against the government of the United States should be a given."</p>
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When it became clear that the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump would take place after he was out of office, it raised a curious constitutional question that few had ever previously considered: Should Chief Justice John Roberts preside over the trial, as he did during the previous impeachment?
We recently got the answer: No. President pro tempore of the Senate Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, will preside instead.
<p>And in an interview on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow on Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer revealed why for the first time.</p><p>"It was up to John Roberts whether he wanted to preside," Schumer said, "and he doesn't want to do it."</p><p>Many had assumed that, as he was during Trump's first impeachment trial, the chief justice would be obligated to preside. But a close reading of the U.S. Constitution suggests he is not.</p><p>"When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside," the Constitution reads. The word "the" before "President" is crucial. Because while Trump is in some sense still "a president," he is definitively not "the president." Joe Biden is. Therefore, we can conclude there's no obligation on the part of the chief justice to preside in Trump's trial.</p><p>Schumer did seem to suggest that the chief justice may have presided over the trial, if he had so chosen. And nothing in the Constitution would appear to forbid that. But it's not surprising that Roberts, believing he had an option under the constitution, would opt to sit the trial out. He is known for having a strong desire to keep the Supreme Court as apolitical as possible. During Trump's first impeachment trial, he frequently looked uncomfortable and displeased with his obligation to preside.</p><p>There still remains a question of why the Leahy had undertaken the obligation to preside over the trial. The duty could have fallen to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the president of the Senate. Leahy, the president pro tempore, only presides in her absence. And Harris may be required during the trial if she needs to cast any tie-splitting votes on procedural matters.</p><p>Trump and other critics of the impeachment process may point to the chief justice's absence as a reason to discredit and dismiss the trial. But the constitutional analysis about his presence being unnecessary is clear-cut.</p><p>On Tuesday, 45 Senate Republicans voted to dismiss the trial entirely, arguing that former officials can no longer be subject to impeachment procedures. However, the scholarly consensus is against this view, and it is not directly supported by the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution specifically lists "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" as a potential consequence of conviction. And that possibility clearly still exists for a former official. So it's reasonable to infer that a trial for a former president is within the scope of the Constitution. The Constitution also makes clear that the Senate itself has the sole power to try impeachments, suggesting that its determination on the matter is conclusive. And with 55 votes in favor of the trial, it has determined that the proceedings against Trump are legitmiate.</p>
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