thenation--2020-06-29--You Can’t Just Vote Out Trumpism

You Can’t Just Vote Out Trumpism

Let ’ s assume that Donald Trump loses the election in November .
Yes , that ’ s a mighty big assumption , despite all the polls currently favoring the Democrats .
If the economy begins to recover and the first wave of Covid-19 subsides ( without a second wave striking ) , Donald Trump ’ s reelection prospects could improve greatly .
The Republican Party has a huge war chest ready to fund ads galore , massive targeted outreach , and widespread voter suppression .
And if all that isn ’ t enough , the president could borrow a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and cancel the election outright on the pretext of concern over the coronavirus or some fabricated emergency .
Playing up fears of Trump ’ s reelection is a useful get-out-the-vote strategy , but for the sake of argument , let ’ s imagine that the election happens and the president loses unambiguously .
A majority of Americans will sigh with relief .
Still , don ’ t count on Trump—and more important , Trumpism—evaporating like a nightmare at daybreak .
To begin with , there ’ s the president ’ s legendary base @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ d continue to back him even if he were to shoot someone on New York City ’ s Fifth Avenue ( or , through criminal negligence , effectively murder more than 100,000 people by ignoring a pandemic for 70 days ) .
Such Trumpists aren ’ t going to suddenly emigrate en masse to New Zealand , as some liberals threatened to do after the last presidential election .
For the time being , the president still has an entire party apparatus behind him , having transformed the Republicans into little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dissenters like former senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker to the political hinterlands , and silencing the handful of so-called moderates that remain .
Trump enjoys institutional support as well , having replaced so many putative deep-staters with civil servants prepared to unquestioningly do his bidding .
He ’ s personally fired his perceived government enemies , chief among them six inspectors general .
Minions like former body man John McEntee , former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell , and presidential aide Stephen Miller have all purged experts , replacing them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meanwhile , Mitch McConnell has done the heavy lifting in the Senate , filling the judicial system with Trump flunkies : two Supreme Court judges , more than 50 Court of Appeals judges , and 140 District Court judges so far .
Ever the money man , the president has secured a reliable cash flow , bringing the über-wealthy class of conservative donors onto his team , a total of 80 billionaires , including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman , Texas banker Andy Beal , World Wrestling Entertainment cofounder Linda McMahon , Silicon Valley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sheldon Adelson .
Thanks to his violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution , Trump has also funneled taxpayer money into his own business : millions spent on rooms at the Trump Organization ’ s hotels and golf clubs .
Even before factoring in his money—Trump personally spent $ 66 million of his own dollars on the 2016 election—his campaign fund already has more than one-third of a billion dollars .
And then there ’ s the bulk of conservative civil society—ranging from think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and evangelicals like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the International Union of Police Associations—that now operates in his corner .
Despite the entertainment world ’ s general loathing of the president , he ’ s even lined up a celebrity or two like rapper Kanye West and actress Roseanne Barr along with a handful of D-listers like actor Jon Voight and Barack Obama ’ s half-brother Malik .
On the fringes roam the true “ bad hombres ” : white supremacists , live-free-or-die militiamen , and QAnon conspiracy theorists .
Taken together , these component parts of Trumpism form that most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the head of an establishment machine and the body of a radical social movement .
This creature has its hands on the levers of power , its boots on the ground , and its eyes on the prize of four more years .
Are all these people and institutions true believers in Donald Trump ?
Probably not .
Sporting more of a performative style than a coherent ideology , he is , to misquote Lenin , a “ useful idiot.
” When he ’ s no longer useful—that is , no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idiot and the opportunists will move on .
While Trump may be expendable , Trumpism—which lies at the intersections of racial and sexual anxiety , hatred of government and the expert class , and opposition to cosmopolitan internationalism—is not so easily rooted out .
Drawing heavily on American traditions of Know-Nothing-ism , America-First-ism , and Goldwater Republicanism , Trump ’ s essential worldview will survive the 2020 election .
If their candidate loses in November , Trumpists will dig in their heels just as their predecessors did after Barack Obama ’ s 2008 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inauguration , the Tea Party was already up and running .
But the Tea Party will prove child ’ s play compared to the resistance the Trumpists are likely to mount if their candidate tanks on Election Day 2020 .
And such resistance could succeed in finishing what Trump started—disuniting the country and destroying the democratic experiment—unless , that is , the United States were to undergo a thorough de-Trumpification .
Other societies have gone through such processes , but those efforts—Reconstruction after the American Civil War , denazification in Germany after World @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003—have all been flawed in various ways .
Reconsidering them , however , might help us avoid repeating the mistakes of history as we try to drive a stake through the heart of Trumpism .
The United States hasn ’ t recently been invaded , lost a major war in its homeland , or had its government fall to a popular uprising .
That ’ s usually what it takes to dislodge a deeply entrenched ruling ideology .
The South lost the Civil War , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hussein the second Gulf War .
Those defeats provided the winners with unprecedented opportunities to remake the old order , but don ’ t seem to apply to America in 2020 .
The electoral defeat of a president and party , if that ’ s even what happens in November , doesn ’ t constitute regime change .
It ’ s just the kind of peaceful transition of power that ’ s the cornerstone of democratic stability .
But let ’ s face it , 2020 isn ’ t shaping up to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like military historian Victor Davis Hanson , believe that Barack Obama and the Democrats have brought the country to the brink of a literal civil war .
During last year ’ s impeachment hearings , Trump himself tweeted approvingly a comment made by Robert Jeffress , an evangelical ally , that impeachment “ will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.
” Meanwhile , typically enough , Obama ’ s first secretary of labor , Robert Reich , suspects that President Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major social unrest , even as comedian Bill Maher urges Democrats to reach out to Trump supporters as part of a bid to defeat the president—or risk civil war .
Many Americans seem to agree .
In a 2018 Rasmussen poll , one-third of respondents thought it likely that another civil war would break out within five years .
According to a 2019 civility poll from the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service , the consensus was that the country is already two-thirds of the way toward a civil war .
Nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential election will go smoothly .
Take your pick from a menu of potential disruptions : allegations of voter fraud and Republican voter suppression , a resurgence of the coronavirus , voting machine software glitches , Russian hackers , confusion over mail-in ballots , or an authoritarian president who repeatedly jokes about serving more than two terms .
A recent Georgia primary offered a warning of what might come , with fiascos aplenty , particularly for voters of color .
There weren ’ t enough polling places , people waited in line for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at homes .
Multiply Georgia by 50 and you ’ d have a full-blown crisis of political legitimacy .
Even if this country manages to pull off the 2020 presidential election , a post-election insurrection is not out of the question .
During the lame-duck period , a defeated Trump might call on his supporters—gun owners , militia members , active-service military—to serve as a Praetorian guard to keep him in office .
Mark Villalta , an attendee at Trumpstock in Arizona last October , was typical of some Trump supporters in confessing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in case Trump loses .
“ Nothing less than a civil war would happen , ” he told The New York Times .
“ I don ’ t believe in violence , but I ’ ll do what I got to do.
” It ’ s essential to ensure that the November 3 election is free and fair , but if Trump loses , then the bigger problems are likely to begin .
In the 1860 election , America confronted a polarized electorate , a stupendously mediocre president in James Buchanan , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South , urban and rural .
Not even the election of Abraham Lincoln could save the Union .
The attack on Fort Sumter , the opening salvo of the Civil War , took place roughly a month after his inauguration .
Donald Trump seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from the “ War Between the States , ” resisting as he ’ s done recently the removal of “ beautiful ” Confederate statues and the redesignation of US military bases named after Confederate generals .
In the last Oscar season , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wind had won rather than some South Korean film he ’ d never heard of .
Such favoritism for the disgraced and vanquished should be as politically disqualifying as a Heil Hitler salute .
The reason that Trump can get away with his Confederate nostalgia comes , at least in part , from the failure of the Reconstruction era after the Civil War to extirpate racism and its associated economic inequality from American society .
In fact , as historian Allen Guelzo points out , “ Reconstruction did not fail so much as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most obvious role in this overthrow , but they would never have succeeded without the consent of the Northern Democrats , who had never been in favor of an equitable Reconstruction.
” The Democrats of the time , in other words , became a party of resistance—to Reconstruction , civil rights , and the radical Republicans of that moment .
So the Confederacy continued to live on not only in the hearts and minds of defeated Southern whites but also in the racist policies that elected officials in both parts of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is a lesson of the Civil War ’ s aftermath for this moment .
Today ’ s Republicans , the equivalent of the northern Democrats of the post–Civil War era and a true confederacy of dunces , can not be allowed to persist in their current incarnation as a vehicle for Trumpism .
A thorough thumping at the polls in November is a necessary but insufficient response to what they ’ ve become .
Gaining a congressional majority , in other words , is not enough .
The Democrats and chastened Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party a far less extreme force in American politics , abandoning Trump and reclaiming Lincoln .
“ We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards , ” Barack Obama insisted as he entered office in 2009 , sidestepping efforts to investigate the wrongdoing of the George W. Bush administration .
He was convinced that such forward thinking would unite the country .
He was wrong .
To avoid a Reconstruction-like fiasco , the next administration would have to drain the swamp Trump created , bring criminal charges against the former president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a serious campaign to change the hearts and minds of Americans who have been drawn to this president ’ s agenda .
When Saddam Hussein fell and American troops took Baghdad , the United States established an occupation authority that attempted to expunge all traces of the former Iraqi autocrat ’ s Baath Party from that society .
At the time , the State Department considered three basic positions on what came to be known as de-Baathification : focus just on Saddam ’ s inner circle of about 50 top-ranking officials , expand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of top politicians , or eradicate Baathism altogether because “ democratization is simply not possible unless and until the entire apparatus of control and authority is uprooted.
” Thanks to Paul Bremer , the head of that Coalition Provisional Authority , the third option became its very first directive , which led to the ejection of between 35,000 and 50,000 Iraqi civil servants onto the streets of their country .
“ In effect , the United States dismantled the Iraqi state , leaving a deep security vacuum , administrative chaos , and soaring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2007 .
“ We summarily deposed not just Saddam Hussein but a centuries-old ruling elite and then were stunned that they reacted poorly.
” That thoroughgoing purge , along with the literal dismantling of the Iraqi army , generated a deep distrust of the American occupation and provided an instant pool of recruits for any militant resistance , fueling an all-out war .
The good news is that since Trumpism has only been a governing ideology for three years , it hasn ’ t ( yet ) penetrated the civil service or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dominated the Iraqi government and armed forces .
Since Trump appointees don ’ t form a particularly deep state , however much Trump would have liked to create one of his own , no Iraq-style resistance is on the horizon .
The judiciary is another matter .
The roughly 200 judges that Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have already managed to appoint for life will do their best to block all attempts to deconstruct Trumpism .
If it can be shown that any of these judges engaged in serious ethical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an option .
However , you can ’ t impeach judges just because you don ’ t like their rulings ( though some Republican legislators did try to do just that in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago ) .
Instead of attempting to remove individual judges , it would be more strategic to go after their ideological backer , the Federalist Society , an über-conservative legal organization that has functioned as a judicial matchmaker for Trump , providing him with a list of potential Supreme Court nominees .
All but eight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been members of the society .
You can ’ t outlaw a legal society , however lunatic its interpretation of the Constitution may be .
However , Senator Sheldon Whitehouse ( D-R.I. ) , who ’ s on the Judiciary Committee , proposes to make it illegal for judges to be members of the Federalist Society .
An added benefit : Such a move would also go after the big money behind the attempted right-wing takeover of the court system , because , as Whitehouse points out , “ the Federalist Society is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dark-money-funded conservative organizations whose purpose is to influence court composition and outcomes.
” Detoxifying the court system is crucial not only for reversing Trump ’ s regressive policies but for clearing the way to prosecute him for his wrongdoing .
At Nuremberg after World War II , the Allied victors put nearly 200 Nazis on trial for various crimes : 161 were convicted and 37 sentenced to death .
The precedents established there and at other war crimes trials have guided contemporary tribunals culminating in the International Criminal Court ( ICC ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ government could give Donald Trump and some of his top aides to the ICC for their violations of international law at the US-Mexico border , the assassination of the head of the Iran ’ s Revolutionary Guard Corps , and similar actions .
But that ’ s unimaginable even for a government led by President Joe Biden in which the Democrats had a veto-proof majority in the Senate .
So it will be up to the American courts to charge and convict Trump , which has so far failed to happen , despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and allegations of sexual assault still inching forward .
The Nuremberg process developed new standards to prosecute the Nazis .
Since the barriers have grown high indeed , the Trumpian opposition would have to get more creative to make sure that Trump goes to jail .
As soon as he is no longer president , federal prosecutors should label Donald Trump and his top associates an ongoing criminal organization and begin the process of bringing them to justice under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ( RICO ) Act .
For years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acting like a mafia godfather , demanding loyalty , bullying competitors , and scorning “ rats.
” Last year , former Trump fixer Michael Cohen ’ s testimony before the House Oversight Committee laid out in graphic detail ways in which the president and his gang were guilty of racketeering : bribery , fraud , obstruction of justice , and the like .
The House of Representatives impeached the president , but with the help of his Republican enablers , he managed to avoid removal from office .
Getting read the RICO Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave him facing years in prison and the Trump Organization would be liable for treble damages as compensation for victims .
As Forbes contributor Steve Denning concluded during the impeachment proceedings : US diplomat Herbert Pell , instrumental in bringing war-crimes charges against the Nazis during World War II , saw “ how Confederate veterans in the South had created for themselves a misty-eyed mythology about the US Civil War and was determined that the Nazis would not do the same.
” As Dan Plesch explained in his study of international war crimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was to prevent postwar nostalgia for the Nazis breeding more war.
” Putting Trump on trial could not only remove him from the political equation but also effectively delegitimize Trumpism and prevent a second round of it from occurring .
Nazism didn ’ t die with Adolf Hitler ’ s suicide , the collapse of his regime , or those convictions at Nuremberg .
More than 10 percent of the German population had belonged to the Nazi Party .
Early efforts at denazification sputtered out largely because the United States and its allies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the heart of Cold War Europe—and Germany quietly allowed former Nazis to remain in every echelon of society .
Seven years after the war , for instance , 60 percent of the civil servants in Bavaria were former Nazis .
Nazi ideology was even more difficult to root out .
According to a public opinion survey conducted in West Germany in 1947 , 55 percent of those living under the US occupation believed that “ National Socialism was a good idea badly carried out.
” Worse yet , the majority of those in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just the old guard .
As bizarre as Donald Trump might be , Trumpism itself is not a new American phenomenon .
The difference is that the far right never before had such access to power , not during the George W. Bush era , not even during Ronald Reagan ’ s presidency .
It always remained on the margins , kept alive by the likes of the John Birch Society , the occasional extreme member of Congress , and weirdo talk show hosts like Alex Jones ofInfoWars .
The danger of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ views that previously had been beyond the pale ( at least in official Washington ) .
A significant number of Americans feel liberated , thanks to his imprimatur , to give voice to the worst angels of their nature .
Transforming such deep-seated belief systems represents quite a different challenge than changing the guard in the Oval Office and beyond .
After all , democratic societies don ’ t send people off to reeducation camps .
Certain communities , like universities , can legislate against hate speech , but it ’ s people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just their tongues , that must be reached .
To do so , it ’ s imperative to separate the legitimate grievances of Trump supporters from the illegitimate ones .
Yes , “ bad hombres ” are attracted to Trump ’ s racism , misogyny , and xenophobia , but many of the disenfranchised who voted for him were motivated by a disgust at political elites and the raging economic inequality they produced in this land .
After the triple whammy of the coronavirus pandemic ( and its disproportionate impact on the working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ followed its spread ( and the disproportionate benefits Amazon ’ s Jeff Bezos and other billionaires drew from it ) , and an epidemic of police violence ( visited on people of color ) , more and more Americans are coming to feel that the status quo is simply unacceptable .
They ’ re disgusted by Republican duplicity but also by the Democrats ’ version of business as usual .
Because Trumpism is a cancer on the body politic , the treatment will require radical interventions , including the transformation of the Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government , and the indictment of the president and his top cronies as a criminal enterprise .
To avoid a second Civil War , however , a second American Revolution would need to address the root causes of Trumpism , especially political corruption , deep-seated racism , and extreme economic inequality .
Otherwise , even if The Donald loses this election , the political creature he represents will rise from the ashes and eventually return to power ( President Tom Cotton ?
President Ivanka ?
! )
.
America can ’ t survive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it afford another failed Reconstruction , a half-hearted de-Trumpification of America , and a return to the previous status quo .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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Let’s assume that Donald Trump loses the election in November.
Yes, that’s a mighty big assumption, despite all the polls currently favoring the Democrats. If the economy begins to recover and the first wave of Covid-19 subsides (without a second wave striking), Donald Trump’s reelection prospects could improve greatly. The Republican Party has a huge war chest ready to fund ads galore, massive targeted outreach, and widespread voter suppression. And if all that isn’t enough, the president could borrow a tactic from the dictators he so admires and cancel the election outright on the pretext of concern over the coronavirus or some fabricated emergency.
Playing up fears of Trump’s reelection is a useful get-out-the-vote strategy, but for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the election happens and the president loses unambiguously. A majority of Americans will sigh with relief. Still, don’t count on Trump—and more important, Trumpism—evaporating like a nightmare at daybreak.
To begin with, there’s the president’s legendary base of support, the one-third of Americans who’d continue to back him even if he were to shoot someone on New York City’s Fifth Avenue (or, through criminal negligence, effectively murder more than 100,000 people by ignoring a pandemic for 70 days). Such Trumpists aren’t going to suddenly emigrate en masse to New Zealand, as some liberals threatened to do after the last presidential election.
For the time being, the president still has an entire party apparatus behind him, having transformed the Republicans into little more than a personality cult, banishing dissenters like former senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker to the political hinterlands, and silencing the handful of so-called moderates that remain.
Trump enjoys institutional support as well, having replaced so many putative deep-staters with civil servants prepared to unquestioningly do his bidding. He’s personally fired his perceived government enemies, chief among them six inspectors general. Minions like former body man John McEntee, former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell, and presidential aide Stephen Miller have all purged experts, replacing them in the government bureaucracy with loyalists. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell has done the heavy lifting in the Senate, filling the judicial system with Trump flunkies: two Supreme Court judges, more than 50 Court of Appeals judges, and 140 District Court judges so far. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Ever the money man, the president has secured a reliable cash flow, bringing the über-wealthy class of conservative donors onto his team, a total of 80 billionaires, including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Texas banker Andy Beal, World Wrestling Entertainment cofounder Linda McMahon, Silicon Valley guru Peter Thiel, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Thanks to his violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, Trump has also funneled taxpayer money into his own business: millions spent on rooms at the Trump Organization’s hotels and golf clubs. Even before factoring in his money—Trump personally spent$66 million of his own dollars on the 2016 election—his campaign fund already has more than one-third of a billion dollars. Current Issue View our current issue
And then there’s the bulk of conservative civil society—ranging from think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and evangelicals like Franklin Graham to the anti-abortion lobby and the International Union of Police Associations—that now operates in his corner. Despite the entertainment world’s general loathing of the president, he’s even lined up a celebrity or two like rapper Kanye West and actress Roseanne Barr along with a handful of D-listers like actor Jon Voight and Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik. On the fringes roam the true “bad hombres”: white supremacists, live-free-or-die militiamen, and QAnon conspiracy theorists.
Taken together, these component parts of Trumpism form that most dangerous of creatures, a political chimera with the head of an establishment machine and the body of a radical social movement. This creature has its hands on the levers of power, its boots on the ground, and its eyes on the prize of four more years.
Are all these people and institutions true believers in Donald Trump? Probably not. Sporting more of a performative style than a coherent ideology, he is, to misquote Lenin, a “useful idiot.” When he’s no longer useful—that is, no longer in power—he’ll only be an idiot and the opportunists will move on.
While Trump may be expendable, Trumpism—which lies at the intersections of racial and sexual anxiety, hatred of government and the expert class, and opposition to cosmopolitan internationalism—is not so easily rooted out. Drawing heavily on American traditions of Know-Nothing-ism, America-First-ism, and Goldwater Republicanism, Trump’s essential worldview will survive the 2020 election.
If their candidate loses in November, Trumpists will dig in their heels just as their predecessors did after Barack Obama’s 2008 victory. Only a month after his inauguration, the Tea Party was already up and running. But the Tea Party will prove child’s play compared to the resistance the Trumpists are likely to mount if their candidate tanks on Election Day 2020. And such resistance could succeed in finishing what Trump started—disuniting the country and destroying the democratic experiment—unless, that is, the United States were to undergo a thorough de-Trumpification.
Other societies have gone through such processes, but those efforts—Reconstruction after the American Civil War, denazification in Germany after World War II, and de-Baathification after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003—have all been flawed in various ways. Reconsidering them, however, might help us avoid repeating the mistakes of history as we try to drive a stake through the heart of Trumpism.
Regime Change
The United States hasn’t recently been invaded, lost a major war in its homeland, or had its government fall to a popular uprising.
That’s usually what it takes to dislodge a deeply entrenched ruling ideology. The South lost the Civil War, the Nazis World War II, and Saddam Hussein the second Gulf War. Those defeats provided the winners with unprecedented opportunities to remake the old order, but don’t seem to apply to America in 2020. The electoral defeat of a president and party, if that’s even what happens in November, doesn’t constitute regime change. It’s just the kind of peaceful transition of power that’s the cornerstone of democratic stability.
But let’s face it, 2020 isn’t shaping up to be a normal election year. Conservative pundits, like military historian Victor Davis Hanson, believe that Barack Obama and the Democrats have brought the country to the brink of a literal civil war. During last year’s impeachment hearings, Trump himself tweeted approvingly a comment made by Robert Jeffress, an evangelical ally, that impeachment “will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Meanwhile, typically enough, Obama’s first secretary of labor, Robert Reich, suspects that President Trump’s flagrant disregard of the Constitution will precipitate major social unrest, even as comedian Bill Maher urges Democrats to reach out to Trump supporters as part of a bid to defeat the president—or risk civil war.
Many Americans seem to agree. In a 2018 Rasmussen poll, one-third of respondents thought it likely that another civil war would break out within five years. According to a 2019 civility poll from the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service, the consensus was that the country is already two-thirds of the way toward a civil war.
Nor is there much confidence that the 2020 presidential election will go smoothly. Take your pick from a menu of potential disruptions: allegations of voter fraud and Republican voter suppression, a resurgence of the coronavirus, voting machine software glitches, Russian hackers, confusion over mail-in ballots, or an authoritarian president who repeatedly jokes about serving more than two terms. A recent Georgia primary offered a warning of what might come, with fiascos aplenty, particularly for voters of color. There weren’t enough polling places, people waited in line for endless hours, absentee ballots never arrived at homes. Multiply Georgia by 50 and you’d have a full-blown crisis of political legitimacy.
Even if this country manages to pull off the 2020 presidential election, a post-election insurrection is not out of the question. During the lame-duck period, a defeated Trump might call on his supporters—gun owners, militia members, active-service military—to serve as a Praetorian guard to keep him in office. Mark Villalta, an attendee at Trumpstock in Arizona last October, was typical of some Trump supporters in confessing that he’s hoarding weapons just in case Trump loses. “Nothing less than a civil war would happen,” he told The New York Times. “I don’t believe in violence, but I’ll do what I got to do.”
It’s essential to ensure that the November 3 election is free and fair, but if Trump loses, then the bigger problems are likely to begin.
Confederacy of Dunces
In the 1860 election, America confronted a polarized electorate, a stupendously mediocre president in James Buchanan, and a clear geographic divide between North and South, urban and rural. Not even the election of Abraham Lincoln could save the Union. The attack on Fort Sumter, the opening salvo of the Civil War, took place roughly a month after his inauguration.
Donald Trump seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from the “War Between the States,” resisting as he’s done recently the removal of “beautiful” Confederate statues and the redesignation of US military bases named after Confederate generals. In the last Oscar season, he even wished that Gone with the Wind had won rather than some South Korean film he’d never heard of. Such favoritism for the disgraced and vanquished should be as politically disqualifying as a Heil Hitler salute.
The reason that Trump can get away with his Confederate nostalgia comes, at least in part, from the failure of the Reconstruction era after the Civil War to extirpate racism and its associated economic inequality from American society. In fact, as historian Allen Guelzo points out, “Reconstruction did not fail so much as it was overthrown. Southern whites played the most obvious role in this overthrow, but they would never have succeeded without the consent of the Northern Democrats, who had never been in favor of an equitable Reconstruction.”
The Democrats of the time, in other words, became a party of resistance—to Reconstruction, civil rights, and the radical Republicans of that moment. So the Confederacy continued to live on not only in the hearts and minds of defeated Southern whites but also in the racist policies that elected officials in both parts of the country would resurrect.
Here, then, is a lesson of the Civil War’s aftermath for this moment. Today’s Republicans, the equivalent of the northern Democrats of the post–Civil War era and a true confederacy of dunces, cannot be allowed to persist in their current incarnation as a vehicle for Trumpism. A thorough thumping at the polls in November is a necessary but insufficient response to what they’ve become.
Gaining a congressional majority, in other words, is not enough. The Democrats and chastened Republicans would have to work to make that party a far less extreme force in American politics, abandoning Trump and reclaiming Lincoln.
“We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” Barack Obama insisted as he entered office in 2009, sidestepping efforts to investigate the wrongdoing of the George W. Bush administration. He was convinced that such forward thinking would unite the country. He was wrong.
To avoid a Reconstruction-like fiasco, the next administration would have to drain the swamp Trump created, bring criminal charges against the former president and his key followers, and launch a serious campaign to change the hearts and minds of Americans who have been drawn to this president’s agenda.
Detoxifying Government
When Saddam Hussein fell and American troops took Baghdad, the United States established an occupation authority that attempted to expunge all traces of the former Iraqi autocrat’s Baath Party from that society. At the time, the State Department considered three basic positions on what came to be known as de-Baathification: focus just on Saddam’s inner circle of about 50 top-ranking officials, expand that circle to include a larger number of top politicians, or eradicate Baathism altogether because “democratization is simply not possible unless and until the entire apparatus of control and authority is uprooted.”
Thanks to Paul Bremer, the head of that Coalition Provisional Authority, the third option became its very first directive, which led to the ejection of between 35,000 and 50,000 Iraqi civil servants onto the streets of their country. “In effect, the United States dismantled the Iraqi state, leaving a deep security vacuum, administrative chaos, and soaring unemployment,” wrote pundit Fareed Zakaria in 2007. “We summarily deposed not just Saddam Hussein but a centuries-old ruling elite and then were stunned that they reacted poorly.”
That thoroughgoing purge, along with the literal dismantling of the Iraqi army, generated a deep distrust of the American occupation and provided an instant pool of recruits for any militant resistance, fueling an all-out war.
The good news is that since Trumpism has only been a governing ideology for three years, it hasn’t (yet) penetrated the civil service or the military to the degree that Baathism dominated the Iraqi government and armed forces. Since Trump appointees don’t form a particularly deep state, however much Trump would have liked to create one of his own, no Iraq-style resistance is on the horizon.
The judiciary is another matter. The roughly 200 judges that Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have already managed to appoint for life will do their best to block all attempts to deconstruct Trumpism. If it can be shown that any of these judges engaged in serious ethical or criminal misconduct, then impeachment would be an option. However, you can’t impeach judges just because you don’t like their rulings (though some Republican legislators did try to do just that in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago).
Instead of attempting to remove individual judges, it would be more strategic to go after their ideological backer, the Federalist Society, an über-conservative legal organization that has functioned as a judicial matchmaker for Trump, providing him with a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. All but eight of his federal appellate court picks have been members of the society.
You can’t outlaw a legal society, however lunatic its interpretation of the Constitution may be. However, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who’s on the Judiciary Committee, proposes to make it illegal for judges to be members of the Federalist Society. An added benefit: Such a move would also go after the big money behind the attempted right-wing takeover of the court system, because, as Whitehouse points out, “the Federalist Society is at the center of a network of dark-money-funded conservative organizations whose purpose is to influence court composition and outcomes.”
Detoxifying the court system is crucial not only for reversing Trump’s regressive policies but for clearing the way to prosecute him for his wrongdoing.
Hauling Them into Court
At Nuremberg after World War II, the Allied victors put nearly 200 Nazis on trial for various crimes: 161 were convicted and 37 sentenced to death. The precedents established there and at other war crimes trials have guided contemporary tribunals culminating in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It would be satisfying if the US government could give Donald Trump and some of his top aides to the ICC for their violations of international law at the US-Mexico border, the assassination of the head of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and similar actions. But that’s unimaginable even for a government led by President Joe Biden in which the Democrats had a veto-proof majority in the Senate. So it will be up to the American courts to charge and convict Trump, which has so far failed to happen, despite some cases related to his tax returns and allegations of sexual assault still inching forward.
The Nuremberg process developed new standards to prosecute the Nazis. Since the barriers have grown high indeed, the Trumpian opposition would have to get more creative to make sure that Trump goes to jail.
As soon as he is no longer president, federal prosecutors should label Donald Trump and his top associates an ongoing criminal organization and begin the process of bringing them to justice under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. For years, after all, the president has been acting like a mafia godfather, demanding loyalty, bullying competitors, and scorning “rats.” Last year, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee laid out in graphic detail ways in which the president and his gang were guilty of racketeering: bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice, and the like.
The House of Representatives impeached the president, but with the help of his Republican enablers, he managed to avoid removal from office. Getting read the RICO Act, on the other hand, could leave him facing years in prison and the Trump Organization would be liable for treble damages as compensation for victims. As Forbes contributor Steve Denning concluded during the impeachment proceedings:
While impeachment would obviously be a severe personal sanction for Donald Trump, convicting the Trump Organization as a RICO enterprise could be far worse. If Trump is ‘only’ impeached, he could always go back to his family business, sadder but perhaps wiser. But if the Trump Organization were to be convicted as a criminal enterprise under the RICO Act, there might be no business for Trump to go back to.
US diplomat Herbert Pell, instrumental in bringing war-crimes charges against the Nazis during World War II, saw “how Confederate veterans in the South had created for themselves a misty-eyed mythology about the US Civil War and was determined that the Nazis would not do the same.” As Dan Plesch explained in his study of international war crimes tribunals, “Pell’s motivation was to prevent postwar nostalgia for the Nazis breeding more war.”
Putting Trump on trial could not only remove him from the political equation but also effectively delegitimize Trumpism and prevent a second round of it from occurring.
The Popularity of Trumpism
Nazism didn’t die with Adolf Hitler’s suicide, the collapse of his regime, or those convictions at Nuremberg. More than 10 percent of the German population had belonged to the Nazi Party. Early efforts at denazification sputtered out largely because the United States and its allies needed a stable, prosperous Germany at the heart of Cold War Europe—and Germany quietly allowed former Nazis to remain in every echelon of society. Seven years after the war, for instance, 60 percent of the civil servants in Bavaria were former Nazis.
Nazi ideology was even more difficult to root out. According to a public opinion survey conducted in West Germany in 1947, 55 percent of those living under the US occupation believed that “National Socialism was a good idea badly carried out.” Worse yet, the majority of those in this category were under 30, not just the old guard.
As bizarre as Donald Trump might be, Trumpism itself is not a new American phenomenon. The difference is that the far right never before had such access to power, not during the George W. Bush era, not even during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It always remained on the margins, kept alive by the likes of the John Birch Society, the occasional extreme member of Congress, and weirdo talk show hosts like Alex Jones ofInfoWars.
The danger of Trump lies in his remarkable capacity to mainstream views that previously had been beyond the pale (at least in official Washington). A significant number of Americans feel liberated, thanks to his imprimatur, to give voice to the worst angels of their nature. Transforming such deep-seated belief systems represents quite a different challenge than changing the guard in the Oval Office and beyond. After all, democratic societies don’t send people off to reeducation camps. Certain communities, like universities, can legislate against hate speech, but it’s people’s hearts and minds, not just their tongues, that must be reached.
To do so, it’s imperative to separate the legitimate grievances of Trump supporters from the illegitimate ones. Yes, “bad hombres” are attracted to Trump’s racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, but many of the disenfranchised who voted for him were motivated by a disgust at political elites and the raging economic inequality they produced in this land. After the triple whammy of the coronavirus pandemic (and its disproportionate impact on the working poor), the economic semi-collapse that followed its spread (and the disproportionate benefits Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and other billionaires drew from it), and an epidemic of police violence (visited on people of color), more and more Americans are coming to feel that the status quo is simply unacceptable. They’re disgusted by Republican duplicity but also by the Democrats’ version of business as usual.
Because Trumpism is a cancer on the body politic, the treatment will require radical interventions, including the transformation of the Republican Party, a purge of Trumpists from government, and the indictment of the president and his top cronies as a criminal enterprise. To avoid a second Civil War, however, a second American Revolution would need to address the root causes of Trumpism, especially political corruption, deep-seated racism, and extreme economic inequality.
Otherwise, even if The Donald loses this election, the political creature he represents will rise from the ashes and eventually return to power (President Tom Cotton? President Ivanka?!). America can’t survive another civil war, but neither can it afford another failed Reconstruction, a half-hearted de-Trumpification of America, and a return to the previous status quo.


thenation--2020-06-29--A Decades-Old Atrocity Finally Sees Its Day in Court

In the dark early morning hours of November 16 , 1989 , an elite unit of the US-trained Atlacatl Battalion entered the Pastoral Center of the Central America University ( UCA ) in San Salvador .
The soldiers rousted six Jesuit priests who lived there and executed them in their pajamas , one-by-one , with an AK-47 shot to the back of the head .
On orders to “ leave no witnesses , ” they also murdered the Jesuits ’ cook and her 16-year-old daughter , who were found lying together in “ an embrace full of bullets , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ witness who did survive the massacre .
More than 30 years after this shocking human rights crime generated outrage around the world , a high-ranking Salvadoran military official finally has gone on trial—not in El Salvador , but in Spain .
Opening arguments in a Madrid tribunal known as the Audiencia Nacional began on June 8 ; on June 10 , the defendant , former vice minister of public security Col. Inocente Orlando Montano , took the stand to deny charges of terrorism and murder that carry a possible prison sentence of 150 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to resume in early July when Spanish prosecutors and lawyers for the victims will present witnesses , evidence , and experts to prove that Montano actively participated in what prosecutors called “ the decision , design , and execution ” of this infamous atrocity .
Montano ’ s day of reckoning marks the culmination of decades of tenacious efforts to seek justice for the Jesuits—and accountability for those who killed them .
Some 12 years have passed since a Spanish lawyer named Almudena Bernabeu , then head of transnational justice at the San @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CJA ) , filed the first petitions in Madrid to initiate legal proceedings .
Like the Spanish legal efforts against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet 20 years ago , the Jesuit trial has rejuvenated the cause of universal jurisdiction—the unique legal principle that gross violations of human rights demand adjudication , if necessary by nations outside the jurisdiction in which the crimes were committed .
“ This trial represents a key moment for universal jurisdiction , ” states the Guernica Centre for International Justice , which represents the victims in this case , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crucial element in transitional justice processes and international criminal law.
” El Salvador ’ s bloody civil war , which lasted from 1979 to 1992 , cost the lives of some 70,000 civilians alone .
Fueled by billions in US counterinsurgency assistance , the Salvadoran military flagrantly deployed death squads and commando battalions throughout the country , which committed some of the most infamous crimes against humanity in recent memory .
Few can forget the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero as he held mass ; the rape and murder of four US churchwomen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during which over 800 men , women , and children were slaughtered by the Atlacatl Battalion .
On trial at home and abroad Justice , Finally , for One of Pinochet ’ s Most Famous Victims Beyond their brutality , those atrocities share another common factor with the execution of the Jesuits : the impunity with which those who gave the orders got away with those crimes .
In the aftermath of the Jesuit murders , a broad coalition of human rights activists , lawyers , and agencies—among them the priests ’ families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the US Congress , and UN and OAS investigators—initiated a concerted campaign to ascertain who ordered the massacre , and to hold them accountable .
The decision to eliminate the Jesuits came amid a Tet-like offensive in San Salvador by the leading guerrilla army , the FMLN .
Infuriated by the strength of the insurgency despite a decade-long “ scorched earth ” counterinsurgency campaign , senior Salvadoran officers led by armed forces Chief of Staff Col. Emilio Ponce decided to kill as many civilian “ subversive elements ” as they could find @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s target list was the Spanish-born Jesuit priest Ignacio Ellacuria , rector of the UCA , and an influential interlocutor for a peaceful settlement to the bloody civil war—a settlement that threatened the power and stature of Salvador ’ s senior military officers .
At a November 15 , 1989 , meeting of the high command that Montano attended , an investigation by the UN Truth Commission later determined , “ Colonel Ponce called over Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides and , in front of the four other officers , ordered him to eliminate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Executed alongside Ellacuria were two other priests involved in the peace talks , vice rector of the UCA Father Martín-Baró and Father Segundo Montes .
Along with the cook , Julia Elba Ramos ; and her 16-year-old daughter , Celina Ramos , three other Jesuits were also murdered : philosophy professor Amando López , theology professor Juan Ramón Moreno , and the director of UCA ’ s low-income children education project , Joaquín López y López .
Before the soldiers withdrew , they planted a piece of cardbord at the scene reading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it .
Victory or death , FMLN.
” Attempting to frame the FMLN was the first step of a cover-up that included spreading disinformation , destroying evidence , intimidating legal authorities , and even killing potential witnesses .
“ All these officers , and others , knowing what had happened , took steps to conceal the truth , ” states the UN Truth Commission report , “ …in order to conceal the responsibility of senior officers for the murders.
” But the official cover-up eventually unraveled under international scrutiny of the murders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the surviving witnesses , housekeeper Lucia Cerna and her husband , to relocate in California so they could safely share what they saw .
In Washington , Representative Joseph Moakley established a congressional task force to investigate .
In August 1990 , his lead investigator , Jim McGovern , traveled to San Salvador and obtained “ breakthrough information on Jesuit slaying and coverup ” from one of the military ’ s “ most senior and respected officers , ” according to a secret cable titled “ The Jesuit Case : Another Big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is true , ” US Ambassador William Walker reported in a panic to Washington , “ …our policy is in peril since the difficult-to-dismiss implications would be that the decision to kill the Jesuits was a deliberate one made at the highest levels of the ESAF [ El Salvador Armed Forces ] .
” Now exposed , the Salvadoran military hierarchy was forced to offer up scapegoats : four mid-level officers and five soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion .
In what was widely perceived as a sham trial , in 1991 , seven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were just following orders .
But Colonel Benavides and an intelligence officer , Lt. Yusshy Rene Mendoza , were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison .
In March 1993 , however , the government of Alfredo Christiani passed an amnesty law ; the two officers were then released after being in prison less than two years .
For more than a decade after the 1992 peace accords were signed , there was little movement toward judicial accountability in the Jesuit case .
In 2004 , however , Almudena Bernabeu , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to San Salvador to meet with colleagues and relatives of the Jesuits about the possibility of filing a case in Spain .
“ We had a lot of wine together , ” as she recalled her efforts to convince the Jesuit authorities and human rights advocates in El Salvador , who preferred to advance the cause of justice inside the country .
At the time , Spain had become a pioneering nation in the application of universal jurisdiction , a controversial tenet in international human rights law that individual nations can , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committed outside their borders .
Only a few years before , a Spanish judge , Baltazar Garzon , had attempted to extradite Gen. Augusto Pinochet from London to Madrid to stand trial for human rights abuses committed during his dictatorship in Chile .
In 2006 , Bernabeu herself became involved in an effort to use Spain ’ s unique legal structures to pursue Guatemala ’ s former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide , building a case that eventually led a Guatemalan judge to indict and prosecute Rios Montt in Guatemala City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of torturers and those who commit genocide , ” Spain ’ s leading newspaper , El País , wrote about her .
In November 2008 , the CJA and the Spanish Human Rights Association filed a 126-page legal complaint on the Jesuit case in the Spanish National Court .
Spain had standing in the matter , their petition argued , because five of the slain Jesuits were Spanish citizens .
After a series of evidentiary hearings , on May 30 , 2011 , Judge Eloy Velasco issued a 77-page indictment for 20 Salvadoran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warrants and subsequently asked Interpol to detain those officials .
The Spanish indictment threatened , but did not breach , the wall of immunity for Salvador ’ s top military officers .
In El Salvador , nine of the indicted officers were briefly detained but then released pending a formal extradition request from Spain .
Predictably , Spain ’ s request was denied by the Salvadoran courts , leaving the legal proceedings in Madrid without the presence of any defendants to prosecute .
At that critical point , the Jesuit case took a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tip from veteran Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada that one of the defendants , Colonel Montano , was living outside of Boston ; employing a private detective , she was able to locate his address in Everett , Mass .
Montano had immigrated to the United States in 2001 , lying on his immigration papers about his 31-year career in the Salvadoran armed forces .
After the CJA notified US authorities of his whereabouts , federal agents arrested Montano on August 23 , 2011 .
In February 2012 , he was indicted for perjury @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on September 11 , 2012 , and was sentenced to 21 months in the penitentiary .
That period of detention gave Bernabeu the opportunity to work with both Spanish and US authorities to arrange Montano ’ s extradition to Spain .
Indeed , the extradition proceedings became a dress rehearsal for the trial in Madrid .
On February 5 , 2016 , Judge Kimberly Swank ruled that Montano had committed a “ terrorist ” crime and approved his extradition .
“ Montano ’ s arrival to Spain , ” Bernabeu told the press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late November 2017 , “ brings hope not only to the families and the Jesuit community but to all victims of El Salvador who have been waiting for justice since the end of the war.
” When the Audiencia Nacional reconvenes on July 8 , the Spanish prosecutors and lawyers representing the victims—Bernabeu and Manuel Ollé—will present their full case against Montano .
The first scheduled witness , Col. Yusshy Rene Mendoza , is expected to provide an insider ’ s account of the planning and execution of the Jesuit massacre .
Along @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 1991 trial in El Salvador but released after the amnesty ; he left El Salvador and repented his role in the slayings .
Mendoza was originally a codefendant with Montano in the Spanish proceedings .
But the judges granted a motion by Mendoza ’ s lawyers to drop all charges against him and allow him to testify as a witness for the prosecution .
Other witnesses will follow , among them the housekeeper Lucia Cerna and former US ambassador to El Salvador William Walker .
Secret cables sent by Walker after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declassified State Department , Pentagon , and CIA records submitted as evidence in the trial .
Many of those documents were gathered by Kate Doyle , who directs the Salvador Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington , D.C. “ The declassified documents contain critical details about the killing of the Jesuits , ” explains Doyle , who previously testified in Madrid in November 2009 to authenticate the documentation when it was first submitted , and is scheduled to testify again on July 10 .
“ The United States spent hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s military : We trained them , we armed them , we fed them intelligence… .
So US officials—military , intelligence , and diplomatic—had really good access and connections , and wrote a lot of secret cables back to Washington about what was unfolding.
” Drawing on the declassified evidence , Stanford University professor Terry Lynn Karl , who also testified in Spain in 2009 and presented evidence against Montano during the immigration fraud proceedings , is expected to provide expert analysis about the context and circumstances of the Jesuit massacre .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ its case against Montano by mid-July , at which time a panel of three judges will begin to evaluate the evidence .
Their ruling is expected by early August .
Whatever the verdict , the Jesuit trial carries a historic significance—for Salvadorans , for the future of universal jurisdiction , and for the simple act of providing justice for the victims .
“ I counted these priests as friends , and I will never forget their wisdom and strength—their lives were about more than just faith , their lives were a call to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , now a 12-term congressman from Massachusetts .
“ We must look at this trial not as an end , but as a milestone on the road to justice and peace in El Salvador.
” The Jesuit case is also likely to renew international debate on the need for , and practice of , universal jurisdiction in Spain , and elsewhere .
The trial is “ extremely significant ” and “ has the potential to reopen the discussion in Spain about the necessity and importance of an effective universal jurisdiction law , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which Bernabeu cofounded in 2017 .
“ It also supports the ongoing realization that countries like Spain need to ensure that victims of human rights violations can find redress when legal avenues have been foreclosed in other jurisdictions due to restrictive legislation , corrupt judiciaries , impunity , or political opposition.
” But for the human rights lawyers and Spanish prosecutors inside the Madrid courtroom , the ultimate goal of the trial is to finally provide the truth and accountability the victims have been denied for over 30 years .
“ At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernabeu told The Nation , “ my hope is for a true and official record on those really responsible for this horrible crime .
There will be no gray , no more doubt .
And with that formal truth , we will honor the victims and achieve some justice .
”

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In the dark early morning hours of November 16, 1989, an elite unit of the US-trained Atlacatl Battalion entered the Pastoral Center of the Central America University (UCA) in San Salvador. The soldiers rousted six Jesuit priests who lived there and executed them in their pajamas, one-by-one, with an AK-47 shot to the back of the head. On orders to “leave no witnesses,” they also murdered the Jesuits’ cook and her 16-year-old daughter, who were found lying together in “an embrace full of bullets,” according to a poignant description of one witness who did survive the massacre.
More than 30 years after this shocking human rights crime generated outrage around the world, a high-ranking Salvadoran military official finally has gone on trial—not in El Salvador, but in Spain. Opening arguments in a Madrid tribunal known as the Audiencia Nacional began on June 8; on June 10, the defendant, former vice minister of public security Col. Inocente Orlando Montano, took the stand to deny charges of terrorism and murder that carry a possible prison sentence of 150 years. The historic proceedings are due to resume in early July when Spanish prosecutors and lawyers for the victims will present witnesses, evidence, and experts to prove that Montano actively participated in what prosecutors called “the decision, design, and execution” of this infamous atrocity.
Montano’s day of reckoning marks the culmination of decades of tenacious efforts to seek justice for the Jesuits—and accountability for those who killed them. Some 12 years have passed since a Spanish lawyer named Almudena Bernabeu, then head of transnational justice at the San Francisco–based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), filed the first petitions in Madrid to initiate legal proceedings. Like the Spanish legal efforts against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet 20 years ago, the Jesuit trial has rejuvenated the cause of universal jurisdiction—the unique legal principle that gross violations of human rights demand adjudication, if necessary by nations outside the jurisdiction in which the crimes were committed. “This trial represents a key moment for universal jurisdiction,” states the Guernica Centre for International Justice, which represents the victims in this case, as well as “accountability as a crucial element in transitional justice processes and international criminal law.”
A Murderous Context
El Salvador’s bloody civil war, which lasted from 1979 to 1992, cost the lives of some 70,000 civilians alone. Fueled by billions in US counterinsurgency assistance, the Salvadoran military flagrantly deployed death squads and commando battalions throughout the country, which committed some of the most infamous crimes against humanity in recent memory. Few can forget the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero as he held mass; the rape and murder of four US churchwomen; and the massacre at El Mozote during which over 800 men, women, and children were slaughtered by the Atlacatl Battalion. On trial at home and abroad Justice, Finally, for One of Pinochet’s Most Famous Victims Peter Kornbluh
Beyond their brutality, those atrocities share another common factor with the execution of the Jesuits: the impunity with which those who gave the orders got away with those crimes. In the aftermath of the Jesuit murders, a broad coalition of human rights activists, lawyers, and agencies—among them the priests’ families, the Jesuit order, conscientious members of the US Congress, and UN and OAS investigators—initiated a concerted campaign to ascertain who ordered the massacre, and to hold them accountable. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
The decision to eliminate the Jesuits came amid a Tet-like offensive in San Salvador by the leading guerrilla army, the FMLN. Infuriated by the strength of the insurgency despite a decade-long “scorched earth” counterinsurgency campaign, senior Salvadoran officers led by armed forces Chief of Staff Col. Emilio Ponce decided to kill as many civilian “subversive elements” as they could find.
At the top of Ponce’s target list was the Spanish-born Jesuit priest Ignacio Ellacuría, rector of the UCA, and an influential interlocutor for a peaceful settlement to the bloody civil war—a settlement that threatened the power and stature of Salvador’s senior military officers. At a November 15, 1989, meeting of the high command that Montano attended, an investigation by the UN Truth Commission later determined, “Colonel Ponce called over Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides and, in front of the four other officers, ordered him to eliminate Father Ellacuría and to leave no witnesses.” Current Issue View our current issue
Executed alongside Ellacuría were two other priests involved in the peace talks, vice rector of the UCA Father Ignacio Martín-Baró and Father Segundo Montes. Along with the cook, Julia Elba Ramos; and her 16-year-old daughter, Celina Ramos, three other Jesuits were also murdered: philosophy professor Amando López, theology professor Juan Ramón Moreno, and the director of UCA’s low-income children education project, Joaquín López y López. Before the soldiers withdrew, they planted a piece of cardbord at the scene reading: “FMLN executed those who informed on it. Victory or death, FMLN.”
Exposing The Cover-Up
Attempting to frame the FMLN was the first step of a cover-up that included spreading disinformation, destroying evidence, intimidating legal authorities, and even killing potential witnesses. “All these officers, and others, knowing what had happened, took steps to conceal the truth,” states the UN Truth Commission report, “…in order to conceal the responsibility of senior officers for the murders.”
But the official cover-up eventually unraveled under international scrutiny of the murders. Colleagues of the Jesuits quietly arranged for the surviving witnesses, housekeeper Lucia Cerna and her husband, to relocate in California so they could safely share what they saw. In Washington, Representative Joseph Moakley established a congressional task force to investigate. In August 1990, his lead investigator, Jim McGovern, traveled to San Salvador and obtained “breakthrough information on Jesuit slaying and coverup” from one of the military’s “most senior and respected officers,” according to a secret cable titled “The Jesuit Case: Another Big Jolt.” “If the basic story is true,” US Ambassador William Walker reported in a panic to Washington, “…our policy is in peril since the difficult-to-dismiss implications would be that the decision to kill the Jesuits was a deliberate one made at the highest levels of the ESAF [El Salvador Armed Forces].”
Now exposed, the Salvadoran military hierarchy was forced to offer up scapegoats: four mid-level officers and five soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion. In what was widely perceived as a sham trial, in 1991, seven were acquitted on the grounds that they were just following orders. But Colonel Benavides and an intelligence officer, Lt. Yusshy Rene Mendoza, were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In March 1993, however, the government of Alfredo Cristiani passed an amnesty law; the two officers were then released after being in prison less than two years.
Taking the Case to Spain
For more than a decade after the 1992 peace accords were signed, there was little movement toward judicial accountability in the Jesuit case. In 2004, however, Almudena Bernabeu, then based at the CJA, began traveling to San Salvador to meet with colleagues and relatives of the Jesuits about the possibility of filing a case in Spain. “We had a lot of wine together,” as she recalled her efforts to convince the Jesuit authorities and human rights advocates in El Salvador, who preferred to advance the cause of justice inside the country.
At the time, Spain had become a pioneering nation in the application of universal jurisdiction, a controversial tenet in international human rights law that individual nations can, and should, address unresolved crimes against humanity committed outside their borders. Only a few years before, a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, had attempted to extradite Gen. Augusto Pinochet from London to Madrid to stand trial for human rights abuses committed during his dictatorship in Chile. In 2006, Bernabeu herself became involved in an effort to use Spain’s unique legal structures to pursue Guatemala’s former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide, building a case that eventually led a Guatemalan judge to indict and prosecute Ríos Montt in Guatemala City. “This lawyer is the nightmare of torturers and those who commit genocide,” Spain’s leading newspaper, El País, wrote about her.
In November 2008, the CJA and the Spanish Human Rights Association filed a 126-page legal complaint on the Jesuit case in the Spanish National Court. Spain had standing in the matter, their petition argued, because five of the slain Jesuits were Spanish citizens. After a series of evidentiary hearings, on May 30, 2011, Judge Eloy Velasco issued a 77-page indictment for 20 Salvadoran military officers; Spain formally issued arrest warrants and subsequently asked Interpol to detain those officials.
Nabbing Montano
The Spanish indictment threatened, but did not breach, the wall of immunity for Salvador’s top military officers. In El Salvador, nine of the indicted officers were briefly detained but then released pending a formal extradition request from Spain. Predictably, Spain’s request was denied by the Salvadoran courts, leaving the legal proceedings in Madrid without the presence of any defendants to prosecute.
At that critical point, the Jesuit case took a dramatic turn. From the reporting of veteran Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, Bernabeu learned that one of the defendants, Colonel Montano, was living in Massachusetts; employing a private detective, she was able to locate his address in Everett. Montano had immigrated to the United States in 2001, lying on his immigration papers about his 31-year career in the Salvadoran armed forces. After the CJA notified US authorities of his whereabouts, federal agents arrested Montano on August 23, 2011. In February 2012, he was indicted for perjury and immigration fraud; Montano pleaded guilty on September 11, 2012, and was sentenced to 21 months in the penitentiary.
That period of detention gave Bernabeu the opportunity to work with both Spanish and US authorities to arrange Montano’s extradition to Spain. Indeed, the extradition proceedings became a dress rehearsal for the trial in Madrid. On February 5, 2016, Judge Kimberly Swank ruled that Montano had committed a “terrorist” crime and approved his extradition. “Montano’s arrival to Spain,” Bernabeu told the press when the extradition order was implemented in late November 2017, “brings hope not only to the families and the Jesuit community but to all victims of El Salvador who have been waiting for justice since the end of the war.”
Truth and Accountability
When the Audiencia Nacional reconvenes on July 8, the Spanish prosecutors and lawyers representing the victims—Bernabeu and Manuel Ollé—will present their full case against Montano. The first scheduled witness, Col. Yusshy Rene Mendoza, is expected to provide an insider’s account of the planning and execution of the Jesuit massacre. Along with Colonel Benavides, Mendoza was convicted in the 1991 trial in El Salvador but released after the amnesty; he left El Salvador and repented his role in the slayings. Mendoza was originally a codefendant with Montano in the Spanish proceedings. But the judges granted a motion by Mendoza’s lawyers to drop all charges against him and allow him to testify as a witness for the prosecution.
Other witnesses will follow, among them the housekeeper Lucia Cerna and former US ambassador to El Salvador William Walker. Secret cables sent by Walker after the massacre are among the hundreds of declassified State Department, Pentagon, and CIA records submitted as evidence in the trial. Many of those documents were gathered by Kate Doyle, who directs the Salvador Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. “The declassified documents contain critical details about the killing of the Jesuits,” explains Doyle, who previously testified in Madrid in November 2009 to authenticate the documentation when it was first submitted, and is scheduled to testify again on July 10. “The United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting El Salvador’s military: We trained them, we armed them, we fed them intelligence…. So US officials—military, intelligence, and diplomatic—had really good access and connections, and wrote a lot of secret cables back to Washington about what was unfolding.” Drawing on the declassified evidence, Stanford University professor Terry Lynn Karl, who also testified in Spain in 2009 and presented evidence against Montano during the immigration fraud proceedings, is expected to provide expert analysis about the context and circumstances of the Jesuit massacre.
The prosecution is expected to sum up its case against Montano by mid-July, at which time a panel of three judges will begin to evaluate the evidence. Their ruling is expected by early August.
Whatever the verdict, the Jesuit trial carries a historic significance—for Salvadorans, for the future of universal jurisdiction, and for the simple act of providing justice for the victims. “I counted these priests as friends, and I will never forget their wisdom and strength—their lives were about more than just faith, their lives were a call to action,” said Representative Jim McGovern, now a 12-term congressman from Massachusetts. “We must look at this trial not as an end, but as a milestone on the road to justice and peace in El Salvador.”
The Jesuit case is also likely to renew international debate on the need for, and practice of, universal jurisdiction in Spain, and elsewhere. The trial is “extremely significant” and “has the potential to reopen the discussion in Spain about the necessity and importance of an effective universal jurisdiction law,” states the Guernica Centre for International Justice, which Bernabeu cofounded in 2017. “It also supports the ongoing realization that countries like Spain need to ensure that victims of human rights violations can find redress when legal avenues have been foreclosed in other jurisdictions due to restrictive legislation, corrupt judiciaries, impunity, or political opposition.”
But for the human rights lawyers and Spanish prosecutors inside the Madrid courtroom, the ultimate goal of the trial is to finally provide the truth and accountability the victims have been denied for over 30 years. “At the end of these proceedings,” Bernabeu told The Nation, “my hope is for a true and official record on those really responsible for this horrible crime. There will be no gray, no more doubt. And with that formal truth, we will honor the victims and achieve some justice.”


thenation--2020-06-29--Republicans Fear D.C. Voters. That’s Why They’re Blocking Statehood.

The House of Representatives made history on June 26 , when it voted 232-180 to approve the Washington , D.C .
Admission Act .
This , noted the congressional delegate who advocates for the 705,000 Americans who live in the nation ’ s capital , was “ [ the ] first time since the creation of the District of Columbia 219 years ago that either chamber of Congress has passed a bill to grant statehood to D.C. residents and , with it , equal citizenship.
” Eleanor Holmes Norton , the civil rights movement veteran who for decades has championed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s debate as an argument over the promise of democracy .
“ Congress has two choices , ” explained the delegate , who has a seat but no vote in the House .
“ It can continue to exercise undemocratic , autocratic authority over the 705,000 American citizens who reside in our nation ’ s capital , treating them , in the words of Frederick Douglass , as ‘ aliens , not citizens , but subjects.
’ Or Congress can live up to this nation ’ s promise and ideals and pass H.R @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the vote on the D.C .
Admission Act , explained Representative Jamie Raskin , was the question of whether members of the people ’ s house were prepared to “ give democratic self-government and equal representation to 700,000 American citizens.
” Of the 233 Democrats who voted , 232 supported the statehood legislation .
Only one House Democrat , Minnesota ’ s Colin Peterson , failed to recognize Norton ’ s argument that the United States is “ the only democratic country that denies both voting rights in the national legislature and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation ’ s capital.
” Why Are Federal Jurists Cheering on Voter Suppression in Wisconsin ?
The Next Politics Is All About Movements—and It ’ s Winning Every Republican voted to continue the disenfranchisement of a city where the majority of residents are people of color .
The members of the Grand Old Party did not merely shame themselves with their votes .
They shamed themselves with their defenses of those votes .
“ Does anyone believe giving Washington more power in Washington will ever help hardworking taxpayers across America ?
Of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Norton had the answer for that one : “ D.C .
pays more federal taxes per capita than any state and pays more federal taxes than 22 states.
” In fact , Norton , whose record of voting rights advocacy can be traced to her days as an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , has an answer for every Republican attempt to justify the unjustifiable .
“ D.C. ’ s population of 705,000 is larger than those of Wyoming and Vermont , and the new state would be one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million , ” she explained .
“ D.C. ’ s $ 15.5 billion budget is larger than those of 12 states , and D.C. ’ s triple-A bond rating is higher than those of 35 states .
D.C. has a higher per capita personal income and gross domestic product than any state .
Eighty-six percent of D.C. residents voted for statehood in 2016 .
In fact , D.C. residents have been fighting for voting rights in Congress and local autonomy for 219 years.
” What united Republicans in their opposition to D.C. statehood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a cynical determination to suppress the votes of people who might , for reasons of history and current circumstance , be inclined to back Democrats—especially progressive Democrats .
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell claims the statehood push is “ full-bore socialism on the march in the House ” and asserts that “ as long as I ’ m the majority leader of the Senate , none of that stuff is going anywhere.
” President Trump is just as blunt .
“ DC will never be a state , ” he grumbled in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Columbia , a state ?
Why ?
So we can have two more Democratic—Democrat senators and five more congressmen ?
No thank you .
That ’ ll never happen.
” Trump and McConnell are wrong .
D.C. will be a state , and the other commonwealths , territories , and possessions of the United States will have representation that respects their racial , ethnic , and political diversity .
Because there is growing recognition that the suppression of voting rights and representation is a supreme injustice .
“ More than 160 years ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Power concedes nothing without a demand .
As Washingtonians and as taxpaying American citizens , we are demanding what is owed to us—the rights guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution , ” argues D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser .
It is past time to fix this injustice .
It is true that DC is more brown and more liberal than many other states .
But the issue of taxation without representation was settled more than 200 years ago through the Declaration of Independence , and disenfranchising more than 700,000 taxpaying Americans is wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Who we elect is our business , and denying us statehood based on who we might send to Congress is both undemocratic and un-American .
D.C. Statehood Is the Answer to Trump ’ s Abuse of Washington The mayor , whose profile has risen in recent weeks as she has stood up to Trump ’ s crude authoritarianism and defended the right of Washingtonians to protest police violence and racism , has amplified the statehood argument at a moment when Americans are waking up to the need to address historic injustices .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she says , “ but I swear—I will not die without representation .
Together , we will achieve DC statehood , and when we do , we will look back on this day and remember all who stood with us on the right side of history.
” Republicans recognize what ’ s happening , and they ’ re doing everything in their power to thwart it .
Trump and his amen corner in the Senate oppose statehood for the same reason they have pursued an aggressive voter-suppression agenda that is as blatant as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can not win safe and fair elections .
So they throw barriers in the way of increased voter turnout with their support of restrictive photo ID laws and their fierce opposition to voting by mail .
It ’ s the same reason they throw barriers in the way of representative democracy with their resistance to D.C. statehood .
The Republicans , once the party of abolitionists , now stand in stark opposition to the expansion of democracy that was once understood as vital to the party ’ s mission .
They reject the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ firm and inflexible Republican ” of the post–Civil War years , for whom the 51st state will be named .
Douglass aligned with the Republican Party in the era when segregationists called the tune on the Democratic side .
In that period , he promoted D.C. voting rights , asking , “ What have the people of the District done that they should be excluded from the privileges of the ballot box ?
Where , when and how did they incur the penalty of taxation without representation ?
” The Republican Party was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be .
But at one time it did recognize—or at least claimed to recognize—the difference between right and wrong .
The party ’ s 1972 platform promised , “ We remain committed to a comprehensive program of human rights , social betterment and political participation for the people of the District of Columbia , ” and declared , “ We support voting representation for the District of Columbia in the United States Congress.
” That same platform heralded the support of a Republican president , Richard Nixon , for “ strong new amendments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and pledged “ continued vigilance to ensure that the rights affirmed by this act are upheld.
” Less than 50 years later , the party no longer even tries to get it right .
The GOP has placed itself , squarely and unequivocally , on the wrong side of the voting rights debate—and the wrong side of history .

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The House of Representatives made history on June 26, when it voted 232-180 to approve the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. This, noted the congressional delegate who advocates for the 705,000 Americans who live in the nation’s capital, was “[the] first time since the creation of the District of Columbia 219 years ago that either chamber of Congress has passed a bill to grant statehood to D.C. residents and, with it, equal citizenship.”
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the civil rights movement veteran who for decades has championed D.C. statehood, framed last week’s debate as an argument over the promise of democracy. “Congress has two choices,” explained the delegate, who has a seat but no vote in the House. “It can continue to exercise undemocratic, autocratic authority over the 705,000 American citizens who reside in our nation’s capital, treating them, in the words of Frederick Douglass, as ‘aliens, not citizens, but subjects.’ Or Congress can live up to this nation’s promise and ideals and pass H.R. 51.”
What was at stake in the vote on the D.C. Admission Act, explained Representative Jamie Raskin, was the question of whether members of the people’s house were prepared to “give democratic self-government and equal representation to 700,000 American citizens.”
Of the 233 Democrats who voted, 232 supported the statehood legislation. Only one House Democrat, Minnesota’s Colin Peterson, failed to recognize Norton’s argument that the United States is “the only democratic country that denies both voting rights in the national legislature and local autonomy to the residents of the nation’s capital.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Every Republican voted to continue the disenfranchisement of a city where the majority of residents are people of color.
The members of the Grand Old Party did not merely shame themselves with their votes. They shamed themselves with their defenses of those votes. “Does anyone believe giving Washington more power in Washington will ever help hardworking taxpayers across America? Of course not,” snarled Representative Kevin Brady. Norton had the answer for that one: “D.C. pays more federal taxes per capita than any state and pays more federal taxes than 22 states.”
In fact, Norton, whose record of voting rights advocacy can be traced to her days as an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, has an answer for every Republican attempt to justify the unjustifiable. “D.C.’s population of 705,000 is larger than those of Wyoming and Vermont, and the new state would be one of seven states with a population under 1 million,” she explained. “D.C.’s $15.5 billion budget is larger than those of 12 states, and D.C.’s triple-A bond rating is higher than those of 35 states. D.C. has a higher per capita personal income and gross domestic product than any state. Eighty-six percent of D.C. residents voted for statehood in 2016. In fact, D.C. residents have been fighting for voting rights in Congress and local autonomy for 219 years.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
What united Republicans in their opposition to D.C. statehood was not a credible argument. It was a cynical determination to suppress the votes of people who might, for reasons of history and current circumstance, be inclined to back Democrats—especially progressive Democrats. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell claims the statehood push is “full-bore socialism on the march in the House” and asserts that “as long as I’m the majority leader of the Senate, none of that stuff is going anywhere.”
President Trump is just as blunt. “DC will never be a state,” he grumbled in May. “You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic—Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That’ll never happen.”
Trump and McConnell are wrong. D.C. will be a state, and the other commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States will have representation that respects their racial, ethnic, and political diversity. Because there is growing recognition that the suppression of voting rights and representation is a supreme injustice.
“More than 160 years ago, Washingtonian Frederick Douglass told us: Power concedes nothing without a demand. As Washingtonians and as taxpaying American citizens, we are demanding what is owed to us—the rights guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution,” argues D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
It is past time to fix this injustice. It is true that DC is more brown and more liberal than many other states. But the issue of taxation without representation was settled more than 200 years ago through the Declaration of Independence, and disenfranchising more than 700,000 taxpaying Americans is wrong no matter our politics or demographics. Who we elect is our business, and denying us statehood based on who we might send to Congress is both undemocratic and un-American. 51st State D.C. Statehood Is the Answer to Trump’s Abuse of Washington John Nichols
The mayor, whose profile has risen in recent weeks as she has stood up to Trump’s crude authoritarianism and defended the right of Washingtonians to protest police violence and racism, has amplified the statehood argument at a moment when Americans are waking up to the need to address historic injustices. “I was born without representation,” she says, “but I swear—I will not die without representation. Together, we will achieve DC statehood, and when we do, we will look back on this day and remember all who stood with us on the right side of history.”
Republicans recognize what’s happening, and they’re doing everything in their power to thwart it.
Trump and his amen corner in the Senate oppose statehood for the same reason they have pursued an aggressive voter-suppression agenda that is as blatant as it is immoral: They know they cannot win safe and fair elections. So they throw barriers in the way of increased voter turnout with their support of restrictive photo ID laws and their fierce opposition to voting by mail. It’s the same reason they throw barriers in the way of representative democracy with their resistance to D.C. statehood.
The Republicans, once the party of abolitionists, now stand in stark opposition to the expansion of democracy that was once understood as vital to the party’s mission. They reject the legacy of Frederick Douglass, the “firm and inflexible Republican” of the post–Civil War years, for whom the 51st state will be named. Douglass aligned with the Republican Party in the era when segregationists called the tune on the Democratic side. In that period, he promoted D.C. voting rights, asking, “What have the people of the District done that they should be excluded from the privileges of the ballot box? Where, when and how did they incur the penalty of taxation without representation?”
The Republican Party was never as good as it claimed to be. But at one time it did recognize—or at least claimed to recognize—the difference between right and wrong.
The party’s 1972 platform promised, “We remain committed to a comprehensive program of human rights, social betterment and political participation for the people of the District of Columbia,” and declared, “We support voting representation for the District of Columbia in the United States Congress.”
That same platform heralded the support of a Republican president, Richard Nixon, for “strong new amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” and pledged “continued vigilance to ensure that the rights affirmed by this act are upheld.”
Less than 50 years later, the party no longer even tries to get it right. The GOP has placed itself, squarely and unequivocally, on the wrong side of the voting rights debate—and the wrong side of history.