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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,710 posts)
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 12:14 PM Sep 2021

"This strikes me as both terrifying and entirely plausible, from Robert Kagan."

Last edited Fri Sep 24, 2021, 06:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Kevin M. Kruse Retweeted

This strikes me as both terrifying and entirely plausible, from Robert Kagan

https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/



The Opinions Essay

Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here

Opinion by Robert Kagan
Contributing columnist
Yesterday at 3:32 p.m. EDT

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.”

— James Madison

{snip}

Today, we are in a time of hope and illusion. The same people who said that Trump wouldn’t try to overturn the last election now say we have nothing to worry about with the next one. Republicans have been playing this game for five years, first pooh-poohing concerns about Trump’s intentions, or about the likelihood of their being realized, and then going silent, or worse, when what they insisted was improbable came to pass. These days, even the anti-Trump media constantly looks for signs that Trump’s influence might be fading and that drastic measures might not be necessary.

The world will look very different in 14 months if, as seems likely, the Republican zombie party wins control of the House. At that point, with the political winds clearly blowing in his favor, Trump is all but certain to announce his candidacy, and social media constraints on his speech are likely to be lifted, since Facebook and Twitter would have a hard time justifying censoring his campaign. With his megaphone back, Trump would once again dominate news coverage, as outlets prove unable to resist covering him around the clock if only for financial reasons.

But this time, Trump would have advantages that he lacked in 2016 and 2020, including more loyal officials in state and local governments; the Republicans in Congress; and the backing of GOP donors, think tanks and journals of opinion. And he will have the Trump movement, including many who are armed and ready to be activated, again. Who is going to stop him then? On its current trajectory, the 2024 Republican Party will make the 2020 Republican Party seem positively defiant.

Those who criticize Biden and the Democrats for not doing enough to prevent this disaster are not being fair. There is not much they can do without Republican cooperation, especially if they lose control of either chamber in 2022. It has become fashionable to write off any possibility that a handful of Republicans might rise up to save the day. This preemptive capitulation has certainly served well those Republicans who might otherwise be held to account for their cowardice. How nice for them that everyone has decided to focus fire on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Yet it is largely upon these Republicans that the fate of the republic rests.

{snip}

It can’t be because {the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection and attempting to overturn a free and fair election} think they have a future in a Trump-dominated party. Even if they manage to get reelected, what kind of government would they be serving in? They can’t be under any illusion about what a second Trump term would mean. Trump’s disdain for the rule of law is clear. His exoneration from the charges leveled in his impeachment trials — the only official, legal response to his actions — practically ensures that he would wield power even more aggressively. His experience with unreliable subordinates in his first term is likely to guide personnel decisions in a second. Only total loyalists would serve at the head of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the Pentagon. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs will not be someone likely to place his or her own judgment above that of their civilian commander in chief. Nor would a Republican Senate fail to confirm Trump loyalists. In such a world, with Trump and his lieutenants in charge of all the levers of state power, including its growing capacity for surveillance, opposing Trump would become increasingly risky for Republicans and Democrats alike. A Trump victory is likely to mean at least the temporary suspension of American democracy as we have known it.

We are already in a constitutional crisis. The destruction of democracy might not come until November 2024, but critical steps in that direction are happening now. In a little more than a year, it may become impossible to pass legislation to protect the electoral process in 2024. Now it is impossible only because anti-Trump Republicans, and even some Democrats, refuse to tinker with the filibuster. It is impossible because, despite all that has happened, some people still wish to be good Republicans even as they oppose Trump. These decisions will not wear well as the nation tumbles into full-blown crisis.

{snip}

One wonders whether modern American politicians, in either party, have it in them to make such bold moves, whether they have the insight to see where events are going and the courage to do whatever is necessary to save the democratic system. If that means political suicide for this handful of Republicans, wouldn’t it be better to go out fighting for democracy than to slink off quietly into the night?

Opinion by Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. His latest book is “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World.”
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"This strikes me as both terrifying and entirely plausible, from Robert Kagan." (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Sep 2021 OP
It was a losing formula in 2020 and would be again in 2024 Shermann Sep 2021 #1
I just finished reading the full essay in the WP. It's essential reading. PLEASE, PLEASE READ! hedda_foil Sep 2021 #2
Thanks. I've had a busy day at work, and I haven't read the article. mahatmakanejeeves Sep 2021 #4
I don't know a single Trump supporter who has changed their mind. Midnight Writer Sep 2021 #3
Not a one. Hell, he received a few million more votes than in 2016. Missn-Hitch Sep 2021 #5

Shermann

(7,313 posts)
1. It was a losing formula in 2020 and would be again in 2024
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 12:23 PM
Sep 2021

Republican ex-presidents and ex-candidates don't generally age well from their own perspective (to say nothing of the outside perspective). Trump's blathering over four years hasn't aged well. His vitriol from his post presidency era won't age well. His policies and broken campaign promises haven't aged well. He physically hasn't aged well. Three more years will only add more fleas to that flea-bitten old dog.

hedda_foil

(16,362 posts)
2. I just finished reading the full essay in the WP. It's essential reading. PLEASE, PLEASE READ!
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 01:14 PM
Sep 2021

The author nails exactly where this country stands today, and the price of politics as usual. The snippet above gives no real insight into the full extent of the piece. Please find a way to read it. If you have any free articles left this month, use them here.

Here are a few paragraphs from the WaPo piece itself. https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. But about these things there should be no doubt:
-snip-
(T)he amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed “technical infractions,” including obstructing the view of poll watchers.

The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. Partisans on both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to inflict harm than they were in 2020. Would governors call out the National Guard? Would President Biden nationalize the Guard and place it under his control, invoke the Insurrection Act, and send troops into Pennsylvania or Texas or Wisconsin to quell violent protests? Deploying federal power in the states would be decried as tyranny. Biden would find himself where other presidents have been — where Andrew Jackson was during the nullification crisis, or where Abraham Lincoln was after the South seceded — navigating without rules or precedents, making his own judgments about what constitutional powers he does and doesn’t have.
-snip-
Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation. The political and intellectual establishments in both parties have been underestimating Trump since he emerged on the scene in 2015. They underestimated the extent of his popularity and the strength of his hold on his followers; they underestimated his ability to take control of the Republican Party; and then they underestimated how far he was willing to go to retain power. The fact that he failed to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way — if Biden had not been safely ahead in all four states where the vote was close; if Trump had been more competent and more in control of the decision-makers in his administration, Congress and the states. As it was, Trump came close to bringing off a coup earlier this year. All that prevented it was a handful of state officials with notable courage and integrity, and the reluctance of two attorneys general and a vice president to obey orders they deemed inappropriate.

-much, much more--


Even this is just a small part of the argument the author lays out. PLEASE read the full long piece.

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,710 posts)
4. Thanks. I've had a busy day at work, and I haven't read the article.
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 03:58 PM
Sep 2021

This is not directed at you, hedda_foil, but for those of you who are upset by the paywall, simply log on to your public library account and read the article online. I suspect that most libraries subscribe to the Washington Post electronically and have it available in a database.

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