Insurrection Day

I originally intended to publish a rambling blog essay about the proper term describing President Trump, federal lawmakers such as Republican Sens. (and presidential aspirants, at least till today) Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and, finally, Republican Congressmen Bill Flores and Pete Sessions, all of whom supported efforts to invalidate the votes of millions of Americans in the 2020 presidential election. Perhaps naively, I argued in my essay that, despite some commentators' opinions to the contrary, these individuals weren’t guilty of treason as narrowly defined under federal law. I argued that, despite some commentators' opinions to the contrary, these individuals weren't guilty of sedition because federal courts allow strong words of dissent against one's government – and, after all, any votes or objections to certified election results and Electoral College votes are legally permissible in the legislative framework. So are spurious lawsuits, such as one to which Congressman Flores added his name and which Sen. Cruz even offered to argue before the Supreme Court of the United States last month.

After seeing a mob Wednesday incited by a constitutionally contemptuous and corrupt president of the United States unable or unwilling to accept his re-election defeat, after seeing rioters invade the U.S. Capitol building to the degree that federal lawmakers and even the vice president of the United States fled for their lives, after seeing insurrectionists with Trump flags and red "Keep America Great" caps roaming through Capitol offices, hallways and chambers of Congress, my original blog offering is moot. After all, it presumed we were still discussing laws and legal precedents and the Constitution like civil patriotic citizens. But no studied approach can begin to cover the lawlessness, anarchy and sedition that I witnessed Wednesday.

Let's put aside all intellectual or qualifying niceties: The president and his supporters – including those who allowed a U.S. flag at the Capitol to drop to the ground and apparently fumbled to run up a blue Trump flag – are nothing less than insurrectionists and terrorists and thugs. And Sen. Cruz and Sen. Hawley and their vermin are nothing less than self-serving enablers of this insurrection and terrorism and constitutional treachery that, at the very least, should preclude them from public office, now and forevermore. And former Republican Congressman Bill Flores, who represented Waco, Bryan/College Station and much of Central Texas till noon Sunday, and newly sworn-in Republican Congressman Pete Sessions, who represents us now, rate inclusion on that list of anti-constitutional, insurrectionist enablers. Shortly before Sessions took the oath of office "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," he put aside his supposed Boy Scout ethics and posed happily alongside domestic enemies near the Capitol supporting the Trump-or-nothing, Constitution-be-damned fanaticism then assembling in Washington. Sessions posted this on his Facebook page: “Had a great meeting today with folks from ‘Stop the Steal’ at our nation’s Capitol. I encouraged them to keep fighting and assured them I look forward to doing MY duty on January 6th.”

They did keep fighting, enough so Sessions didn't get a chance to do his seditious bit as originally scheduled. 

Several individuals online naturally applauded Sessions’ complicity on Facebook this past weekend, but others saw matters differently. One tweeted a memorable passage written by Ulysses S. Grant, part of an April 21, 1861, letter to his father shortly after the South’s firing upon Fort Sumter, triggering the Civil War, a four-year conflagration that left more than 600,000 Americans dead: “There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party." Another responding to Sessions’ post and photo tweeted in turn an illustration of Benedict Arnold, leaving it up to the congressman and his staff to figure out who the unnamed and bewigged figure was.

Rick Kennedy, the insightful and balanced Democratic candidate up against Sessions last November, sent the congressman a note this week congratulating Sessions on his victory (and, incidentally, without questioning the election results despite Texas’ own “election irregularities” such as expanded early voting by gubernatorial order) but warned Sessions that “you’re playing politics with the fragile democracy with which you’ve been entrusted.” Kennedy continued:

“My concern is that since Election Day, your social media postings have consisted almost exclusively of disinformation and election fraud conspiracy theories that do exactly the opposite. You’ve cited articles and tweets from multiple disreputable sources promulgating these theories – all of which have been debunked by factual analyses by the courts, independent observers and by Republican elected officials. I encourage you to not befoul the debate by further airing these debunked claims and hope that the basis of your objection is factual and credible.”

All of which reminds me of an Oct. 6, 2019, column I wrote for the Waco Tribune-Herald about Pete Sessions when, having been beaten for re-election from his Dallas congressional district in 2018 by Democrat and former Baylor University linebacker Colin Allred and then stung in a high-level scandal involving dubious campaign contributions and foreign intrigue, Sessions relocated and announced he was running for Congress again, this time from his native Central Texas where Republican voters aren't so fussy about ethics and foreign meddling if the politicians involved have an "R" behind their names. A prophetic excerpt from that column (if I do say so):

“Intrigue, subterfuge and grandstanding make it harder and harder to address complicated issues, whether of the kitchen table or industry and commerce, in congressional campaigns or Washington corridors of power. The nuances of solution and the potential for consensus critical in successful legislation falter when a president emboldened by reality-TV success and the roar of the mob peddles civil war, presses foreign leaders to undermine political rivals and attacks members of his own party not deemed sufficiently loyal. Given Sessions’ reputation as a culture warrior and Trump ally arguably itching to get back into the fray, one must wonder if serious policy stands a chance in this era.”

Central Texas voters heeded none of the extensive, probing news coverage the Waco Tribune-Herald subsequently published on the congressional race in winter 2020. And by Wednesday afternoon, Congressman Pete Sessions  — four days into his new tenure and just hours earlier still full of anti-constitutional vigor on behalf of the president, even as the latter incited a mob of rioters nearby – had retreated to safety as his “folks” had their way with the Capitol. As pro-Trump protesters rummaged lawlessly through the building with little resistance from law enforcement, the congressman had the gall to reassure us that all was well, at least for him and his circle. His tweet: "My staff and I are safe. Thank you to all law enforcement for protecting us. I am praying for every officer's safety."

No prayers, meanwhile, for the democracy Sessions helped assault.

Several skeptical constituents again responded to Sessions: "This is what happens when rule of law is replaced by hypocritical party pandering. I'm glad you're safe, but please reflect on how your choices exacerbated the sentiments that have now imperiled you. Please protect our Republic." Another: "I’m glad you’re safe. Do you have a message for the trespassers? Do you feel any responsibility for today’s events?" A third: "You supported this. You imperiled your staff. This is on you." Another: "Good. Now [that] you spend a few hours huddled under your desk wetting yourself as men with guns march [through] the halls, maybe you [will] know what elementary students in Texas Schools have to worry about every day." Another: "Denounce it, coward." Yet another: "YOU could have taken office representing all of us instead of siding with Trump immediately & encouraging his reckless, delusional behavior. Now we are all praying USA will get out of this tragic mess brought on by GOP."

While low-key Congressman Flores is now safely out of public office, he was among 126 House Republicans who signed on in support of a ludicrous Dec. 7 lawsuit filed by indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton pressing the Supreme Court of the United States to invalidate some 20 million votes in other states (Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin) – action that scuttles the supposed Republican principles of federalism and states’ rights. By his last few years of power (and he served a full decade), Flores had stopped waving his little pocket Constitution at me during Tribune-Herald editorial board meetings. How could he claim constitutional principles after standing aside while the president assumed the very power of the purse that Article I of the Constitution strictly reserves to Congress, all so that President Trump could build the border wall he claimed Mexico would fund? That’s pretty much when I gave up on Flores. (My more unforgiving, straightforward colleague, Trib Editor Steve Boggs, gave up on Flores earlier after Flores quit doing in-person town-hall meetings and facing pushback from his constituents.) After the Supreme Court refused to even consider the Dec. 7 Paxton suit to overturn the presidential election and state-by-state Electoral College votes finally transpired on Dec. 14, Flores deemed the presidential election done and over: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was the winner and thus president-elect. Still, Flores played an incremental role in what we saw Wednesday, including regularly posting misleading and incendiary tweets from dubious if not downright disreputable sources. I called his hand on it once, he gushed the appropriate embarrassment, yet could not resist following the president's example time and again. In the end, Flores, a tea-party congressman, proved part of the problem, not part of the solution, another waste of talent and potential. The day of insurrection I received a large farewell mailer from Flores, chronicling his congressional feats and including a photo of him and the president.

As for Sen. Ted Cruz’s scramble to assume Senate GOP leadership in challenging the election results (eclipsing other similarly disposed senators), one can only marvel at a Texan who has shown more vigor and more consistency in defending Trump than he showed in defending his own wife and own father from personal insults and lies leveled at them by Candidate Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign – something no real Texan a few decades ago would tolerate. So much, too, for Cruz’s empty vow to better represent Texans who didn’t vote for him after his narrow 2018 re-election to the Senate following a strong challenge by charismatic Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who at least seemed to epitomize a certain decency and stronger grasp of constitutional issues. Even actress Patricia Arquette joined in the fun of pillorying Cruz before Wednesday's insurrection, tweeting to him: “You have lost 60 election-related court cases, [have been] rejected by SCOTUS, lost numerous hand counts, electronic recounts, signature verification audits, Rep. SOS’s & top Intel agencies told you the elections were fair. The least popular president in history lost.”

Any seasoned political observer knows full well Cruz is seeking to claim the adoration of Trump disciples, greasing the skids for a presidential run in 2024, almost certainly the same ambition of another in this bunch, Sen. Josh Hawley. In the final analysis, Cruz perfectly epitomizes the cancer now fast consuming the Republican Party to which principled Republican conservative Sen. Ben Sasse recently referred: “All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party. We ought to be better than that.” Indeed, Cruz’s manifesto arguing reasons for opposing certification of selected election results where Biden won is easily shredded. His suggestion that the courts failed to consider evidence is absolutely false. And he wrongly suggests the Supreme Court of the United States is an evidentiary, fact-checking body, which it is not. Is Cruz just ignorant or was he simply playing dumb to rouse a Trumpian mob he hopes will one day catapult him into the White House?

For Constitution 101 we must instead turn to Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a staunch Trump ally whose fidelity to our legal system and the Constitution is nonetheless stronger than that of Cruz. Without mincing words, he explains why he refused to align himself with Cruz and the others, even as he acknowledged the need for election reform:

"Nevertheless, the Founders entrusted our elections chiefly to the states — not Congress. They entrusted the election of our president to the people, acting through the Electoral College — not Congress. And they entrusted the adjudication of election disputes to the courts — not Congress. Under the Constitution and federal law, Congress’s power is limited to counting electoral votes submitted by the states. If Congress purported to overturn the results of the Electoral College, it would not only exceed that power but also establish unwise precedents. First, Congress would take away the power to choose the president from the people, which would essentially end presidential elections and place that power in the hands of whichever party controls Congress. Second, Congress would imperil the Electoral College, which gives small states like Arkansas a voice in presidential elections. Democrats could achieve their longstanding goal of eliminating the Electoral College in effect by refusing to count electoral votes in the future for a Republican president-elect. Third, Congress would take another big step toward federalizing election law, another longstanding Democratic priority that Republicans have consistently opposed.”

A few years ago, some close friends of mine in the Democratic fold insisted Donald Trump was a Hitler in the making, that he had clear authoritarian tendencies that would become more pronounced and consequential as time passed. Having spent most of my life as a Republican and a conservative, I dismissed such talk, even though I recognized back in 2016 Trump was enough of a menace to democracy and constitutional order to vote against him. (Yes, I voted for Hillary Clinton for president – and felt like taking a shower afterward.) Frankly, I'd heard the same criticism about blossoming tyranny and such voiced by extremists on the left about President George W. Bush, which struck me as absolute nonsense. In any case, I told friends that they had little to fear, that all Republicans who claimed such fealty to the Constitution would keep Trump in line. Indeed, the Founders presumed pride in the legislative branch would ensure lawmakers kept Trump’s worst impulses in check. But the Founders hadn't reckoned on the fierce partisanship of today and the fear many lawmakers have of assaults-by-tweet from an unhinged, loyalty-demanding president. One by one, many Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate looked the other way as Trump committed one constitutional transgression after another. They excused such transgressions by saying the government was, uh, well,  in crisis. The multitude of executive actions they decried as tyranny when undertaken by an African-American Democratic president (one dismissed by Trump as foreign-born and thus illegitimate as president) were simply ignored or rationalized away when a white Republican president did the very same – and often with less justification for doing so, given that his party controlled both the House and Senate the first two years of his administration.

As Trumpian insurrectionists drove lawmakers and the vice president into hiding or from the Capitol, I kept wondering where on earth law enforcement was. Hours passed and they offered little visible evidence of restoring law and order. Did they make the same mistake I did four long years ago? Did they believe no Republican president and no Republican elected officials would ever incite their followers to storm the U.S. Capitol? Did they assume no white, self-envisioned Christian patriots could ever be so misled, so bamboozled and so filled with hate they would do what they did Wednesday? Did they foolishly conclude this was a “law and order” crowd? Did the police think that somehow democracy as an ideal would ultimately prevail with little or no preparation or vigilance by the rest of us, whether elected official, law enforcement agent, veteran journalist or plain old rational citizen? Maybe so.

A former Tribune-Herald publisher, sounding the alarm and disbelief on his private Facebook page this afternoon, was astonished when a Trump-adoring friend instead expressed fears about socialists taking over government. Yet the only socialists in the building on Wednesday afternoon were elected ones. Those who drove them and everyone else to duck and cover or flee, including the insurrectionists' very own schemers and co-conspirators in high office, were deplorable citizens who deserve to see the status of citizenship stripped from them. And those who enabled and encouraged them through four years right up till Wednesday, those seeking to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and muddy the truth and trample decency qualify as neither patriots nor worthy prospects for president or any public office. They betrayed their country, the values illuminated in our founding documents and the wisdom of generations of Americans who sacrificed for more than what we witnessed today. Whatever one brands the scoundrels, turncoats, insurrectionists and thugs making a mockery of democracy and constitutional law, woe to anyone who puts trust in them ever again.