The Coming Storm II

Two former attorneys general take to the opinion page of the Washington Post to plead with Americans to keep the peace and with political leaders not to stoke or condone politically-motivated violence:

Over the years, in the course of disputing matters of law and policy, each of us has said critical, even harsh, things about the other. Please do not conclude from our joint authorship of this article that either of us would retract or even reconsider any of those past statements.

Far from it.

Rather, we write jointly because we would like to continue to disagree the way we have in the past, the way Americans generally have in the past. That is: within a political system in which winners of elections get to execute their policies for a prescribed period, so long as those policies conform to the law. Within a system in which winners of elections do not face the threat of societal and political paralysis as they attempt to govern.

concluding this section with

Of course, the First Amendment guarantees people the right to demonstrate their views to their fellow citizens and to try to garner support for the changes they would like to see. But it assuredly does not give them the right to use those demonstrations to impose their will on fellow citizens. It does not give them the right to act out the view that if they cannot get the political outcome they want, their fellow citizens should not be able to lead peaceful lives.

Carrying signs and chanting slogans is completely acceptable. Throwing rocks, setting fires, or blocking streets is not. Following buses belonging to political campaigns, honking horns and shouting opposing political slogans is normal raucous American politics. Running them off the road is not. Neither is calling 911 if all they did was be there honking horns and shouting slogans.

They then transition to the second part of their message:

This should not require saying, but we feel compelled to say it: nor should our political leaders stoke or condone violence.

It is not only violence that can undo us. Even before Election Day, disagreements about how to count votes have generated legal disputes, and of course those disputes have gone to the courts. But there is a difference between taking legal disputes to court when necessary and conducting a campaign of litigation that obstructs more than it resolves. We strongly agree that votes must be counted fairly and voices heard in a way that preserves peace and promotes confidence in our system.

I completely agree with that but, if you believe that the problems are limited to a single party, you are looking at the present through partisan blinders. For every instance of a political leader of one party condoning political violence I could produce an example of a political leader of the other party condoning it. That’s what makes the present situation so fraught. Each side is attempting to use whatever means necessary to work its will. Each side sees their own supporters as, to use a heinous phrase, “mostly peaceful”.

I don’t agree with their conclusion:

Finally, there is the insidious danger posed by charges that have nothing to support them other than an accuser’s invitation to us to hallucinate evil. The widespread distrust of our institutions and processes that such rhetoric encourages can paralyze us just as surely as violence or the uncertainty generated by a torrent of litigation.

The House spent the first part of the year impeaching President Trump on little more than “an accuser’s invitation to us to hallucinate evil”. While there is plenty of smoke, no one to date has been successful in producing fire. Where were they during that process?

I would welcome pledges from candidates not to appeal the results of elections to the courts. Can you imagine them making them? Me, neither.

And I don’t believe that political institutions deserve trust by default as some sort of birthright as they imply in that second sentence. Quite to the contrary they should distrusted by default and must earn trust by consistent probity, fairness, and political impartiality. Institutions not limited to governmental ones but extending to education and journalism have been squandering the trust they had built up over decades. Trump has abetted that loss of confidence but it is the institutions themselves that are at fault.

Update

Advice from Karl Markowicz at USA Today on what to do if your candidate loses:

There’s a good chance your presidential candidate will lose on Tuesday. It doesn’t matter if you support Donald Trump or Joe Biden, your chance of disappointment is approximately the same. You hear people on your side wonder: What will we do if our guy loses?

Here’s what you will do.

You will wake up the next day, or whenever the results are finally confirmed, and be sad. You will feel let down. You thought you knew your fellow Americans and then they went and did this! How could they?

Read the whole thing. While I think that most Americans will follow that advice, it’s a large enough country that some will not. How numerous “some” are and what they’re willing to do is what’s got people worried.