Our institutions of democracy and law have been under vicious attack for years now – that is from within, not from without the United States. And these vicious attacks are unsustainable and unendurable. They’ve already taken their toll on American democracy and American law in their impact, and the consequence of their impact, on the institutions of democracy and law. We are at a perilous crossroads.
Michael Luttig
A few clear-eyed conservatives have been warning that the United States could soon face a complete collapse of the rule of law. These faithful supporters of the Constitution have warned that the decades-long, right-wing, effort to politicize the law and the courts (and the media, and science, and our schools, and our churches, and essentially every institution in our society) has caused a breakdown in public trust and a disintegration of normal civic discourse.
I’ve been trying to resist that politicization of the law and the courts for many years now, largely unsuccessfully. But this issue of the rule of law has come to a head now in America beginning on January 6, 2021 – if not before. Because January 6th, in the events of that fateful day, were an unprecedented attack on the Constitution and the rule of law as well as an unprecedented attack on American democracy.
Michael Luttig
Supporting the Big Lie
The problem has only gotten worse since the Insurrection at the Capitol. Nearly two-thirds of all Republicans in the country still believe the Big Lie that President Biden did not win the 2020 election legitimately.
The former president, his allies, and now the entire Republican party have circled the wagons around the former president regarding January 6th and denied that the former president lost that election, denied January 6th and its consequences, all toward the end of that being the Republican platform in 2024. And all the while, the former president and the Republicans have caused the corrosion of our democracy and the rule of law.
Michael Luttig
Supporting a coup
Every elected Republican office holder continues to either ignore or minimize the coup attempt on January 6th, 2021. Their prolonged silence is the same as acceptance of the violence of that day.
To not decide to denounce January 6th and the former president’s actions on that day, is to decide that you agree with the former president and with all that occurred on January 6th.
Michael Luttig
Elected Republican office holders, by failing to denounce, and in many cases giving active support to, the ongoing corruption of our political processes, have literally violated their oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution. Their behavior is indefensible. It is tantamount to treason. No patriotic American should ever again vote for these people.
The events inspired by the former president (on January 6th) were a betrayal of America and a betrayal of Americans. The former president and his allies, betrayed the sacred trust that had been conferred upon them by the American people.
Michael Luttig
Will democracy survive?
The indictment of the former president in New York is an important first step, but whatever happens in that case will not solve the problem. There must be serious legal, political, and personal consequences for inciting violence at the US Capitol and interfering with an official proceeding of Congress. It is the only way to block the Republican effort to normalize such disgusting, un-American, behavior.
If it happens to be the case, that the Stormy Daniels prosecution and the classified documents investigation are the only two prosecutions of the former president coming out of all of his antics, and that he’s not prosecuted for January 6th, I will believe that that’s a great disservice to democracy and to the rule of law in America.
Michel Luttig
Sources:
Charlie Sykes, “Judge Michael Luttig: A Betrayal of America,” The Bulwark Podcast, March 28, 2023.
Note:
Judge Michael Luttig served on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for a decade and a half. He was frequently mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee. He is a respected judicial conservative who once clerked for the late Antonin Scalia. He testified before the Jan. 6 Committee on June 16, 2022.
Luttig is best known for his January 5, 2021 “tweet heard ’round the world” that said that the Vice President does NOT have the power to alter the electoral college vote. That such a legal reminder would even be needed is a sad indictment of the former President and his advisors.