“The only thing we have to fear is Fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
As we all know, the US Joint Session of Congress duly certified the election of Donald Trump for a second term as President yesterday, hailing what Vice President Kamala Harris graciously referred to as a “return to normal” after the appalling chaos of the MAGA mob breaking into the capital, exactly four years ago — at Trump’s direct and inflammatory incitement — to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s free and fair election.
There is only one big problem here: there is nothing “normal” about the entire Joint Session of Congress directly violating the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (which they had sworn to uphold and defend, only a few days earlier), with its explicit clause prohibiting anyone who has engaged in an insurrection against the United States Government from serving in an elective office. This craven and obsequious action was motivated by fear, not principle.
Most elected officials would likely argue that they were acting out of prudence, rather than fear; that is, out of a desire to restore the peaceful and orderly succession of power that had never been breached — before January 6, 2021. They might further claim, with some justification, that doing otherwise — that is, citing the 14th Amendment to deny the Presidency to Trump — would have created a Constitutional crisis, and triggered rage and fury among his massive cult following, many of whom own lots of guns and are itching to use them.
These are, to be sure, legitimate concerns. But what good is a Constitution, if federal lawmakers can be so easily intimidated that they will violate it at will? What clause of the Constitution will come next? Especially since our corrupted Supreme Court has already violated the Constitution by granting Trump blanket immunity from prosecution for any (self-defined) “official acts” while he is President. This has made him, in effect, our first king — a man above the law, who can do anything he wants with impunity.
Prudence…or cowardice? Imagine a continuum, on which we place COWARDICE at one end, and FOLLY at the other. At the midpoint, we conjoin two virtues: PRUDENCE/COURAGE. Such a simple diagram will convey the exact relationship between these two virtues and their attendant vices. It goes something like this:
1. PRUDENCE without COURAGE becomes COWARDICE;
2. COURAGE without PRUDENCE becomes FOLLY.
This is a useful insight as we face a perilous future. The “Prudence” that our elected officials showed in certifying Trump’s election, without the Courage they needed to adhere to their oath to support the constitution, became cowardice. But Courage only becomes Folly, likewise, when it is deficient in Prudence. Was there a prudent way, in this instance, to deny the Presidency to a man who had egregiously violated his oath of office by fomenting a violent break-in to our Capitol to disrupt the certification four years ago?
Many would argue that in this instance, there was no prudent way to do this, especially after our captive Supreme Court reversed a Colorado Supreme Court decision to deny Trump’s position on the ballot based on the Fourteenth Amendment. Would the resulting chaos have been worth the risk, to save America from tyranny?
This is, of course, unanswerable, since it is now water under the bridge. What we have instead is the normalization of a man who has made no secret of his determination to dismantle any and all institutional constraints on this power, and to “seek retribution” against his enemies (that is, anyone who opposes him for any reason). In short, we now live in the Former United States of America, an oligarchic fascist regime that has abandoned the core principles upon which our nation was founded: rule of law, balance of powers, and constitutional government in the public interest, to “secure the rights” of all.
Instead of a government of, by and for the people, we will now have a government of less than half the people; Trump has never once said, (in contrast to Kamala and all other past candidates) that once elected, he would be “President of all the people,” supporters and opponents alike. Instead, he has labeled all of us who oppose him as the “enemy within” to be silenced, persecuted, denied federal funds, imprisoned, or annihilated. And his regime is governed by and for the oligarchy — the billionaires who form his power base, along with the corporations that seek to eliminate any and all regulations in the public interest, so that they can pollute the planet, form monopolies, and exploit labor to their heart’s content, in order to maximize their profits.
Now that we are here in this dark place, our elected officials having handed over our government to a thuggish, vindictive Don, with toxic charisma and a vast cult of personality, who lusts for absolute power and seeks “retribution” on his enemies, let’s take a closer look at the wisdom in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous line: “The only thing we have to fear is Fear itself.”
Since the dawn of civilization, fear has been the primary instrument of tyrannical power. As we remember from The Godfather series, the primary modus operandi of Mafia dons, in dealing with others, has been to “make him an offer he can’t refuse.” The implied threat, of course, is that if the offer is not accepted, the person solicited will be “whacked” (i.e. murdered) or otherwise live to regret it. And so, like Mafia dons, tyrants surround themselves by sycophantic yes-men with unshakeable loyalty to the boss, who in turn, will enact his revenge on all whom the tyrant sees as a threat to his power.
And of course, Trump fits this model exactly, with his appallingly sycophantic, unqualified cabinet, his majority in both houses of Congress, his largely hand-picked Supreme Court majority and corrupt Federal judges like Aileen Cannon. His greatest enemy is our Constitutional guarantee of intellectual freedom — which has insulated all of us from fear of tyrants in the past. He is therefore taking special aim, starting with lawsuits, against all media outlets who expose his tyranny and corruption, including even PBS, which is now on the Republican chopping block. His goal is to suppress all media criticism, and make Fox News and X his own Pravda, spreading lies shamelessly and intimidating all who expose them.
Things will likely get uglier from here: just as, in 2021 and thereafter, his failed lawsuits to baselessly claim voter fraud were followed by efforts to engage in his own voter fraud (by creating slates of false electors in states he lost) — and when these legal efforts failed, to go rogue and foment a violent attack on the Capitol, we are likely to see Trump’s punitive measures against his “enemies” in Congress and in “blue” states and elsewhere become more brutal and lawless over time, possibly leading to an appallingly oppressive reign of terror, on the model of his idols like Putin and Kim Jong Un.
However, as Thomas Jefferson said (in words inscribed on his Memorial), “I have sworn upon the Altar of God eternal hostility to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Let us all share and endorse this oath, no matter what happens. Let us vow, again and again, to speak truth to power, to refuse to cooperate with evil in any form, and to build local solidarity, resilience, and resistance to tyranny — mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly. As Jimmy Cliff once sang, “I’d rather be a free man in my grave/Than living as a puppet or a slave.” So be it!