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Donald Trump hates democracy when it does not serve his purposes, as was confirmed by the president’s incitement last week of a deadly assault on the US Capitol by supporters of his failed attempt to overturn 2020 presidential results. But that does not mean Trump intends to give up on his dream of serving a second disastrous term as president of the United States.
What you need to know about how lawmakers are using the 14th Amendment to hold Trump and his political supporters accountable for the Jan. 6 riots on the US Capitol.
It’s been less than a week since a mob whipped up by President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol in his name, and Republicans in Congress are already telling Americans to move on. What’s needed now is not punishment for insurrection, they say, but rather “healing” for a country rent by partisan fissures.
“To deliver a better America, partisans of all stripes must first unite as Americans and show that a peaceful transition has occurred,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a Friday statement. “Impeaching the president . will only divide our country more.”
But there has not been a “peaceful transition.” Five people are dead, and dozens injured, because the president’s supporters attacked Congress in an effort to disrupt its confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
I have felt compelled to delay my wrap-up response until we got through the events of the last week. Readers who, like me, are Americans will understand why. Here we are in
Cato Unbound developing our thinking about how a democratic society copes with its antidemocratic factions, while all around us the very conflict we have been contemplating is playing out in real time.
My views are colored by last week’s events. The president of the United States attempted to suborn a state’s officials to negate or change the voting outcomes in their state. (This may have happened in other states as well.) The president then used a public event to call directly for mass action that amounted to an assault on the Congress in the Capitol building on January 6. Some members of his audience took him to mean that the invading throng should not merely attempt to intimidate (or assault) members of the opposition party but also Republican members of Congress who were insufficiently resolved to cha