Letter to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO5) re Acknowledging the Biden Victory & Administration

 

Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO5)

The following is the text of an email letter that I sent to my congressman today. If you share my opinion and you have a senator or congressman who has not acknowledged the Biden victory (and therefore the lawful legitimacy of his administration), I urge you to join me in writing your representatives. We need to speak out against the big lie. Please feel free to copy and paste to your heart's content!

Dear Congressman Lamborn: 

Today marks the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States of America. If I’ve counted correctly, this marks the 16th inauguration of a President in my lifetime. Some of the presidents were elected in landslides, some in squeakers, and some even after having lost the popular vote. But in each instance, the nation came together under the duly elected president by the time of the inauguration. In each instance, the defeated candidate recognized and affirmed the outcome. On several occasions, defeated incumbent presidents have looked on as their successor was sworn in. This has been an American tradition and a ritual affirmation of our democracy. But this will not happen this year. Our electoral system has been plagued by what we now know definitively as “the big lie,” that somehow, President Trump had actually been the choice of most voters. I know that you are a supporter of President Trump and that you voted to disqualify the votes of some states that Biden carried, even after the attack on Congress. I know that you supported the re-election of President Trump. I know that you voted against impeaching President Trump for his role in promoting the mob’s attack on the Capitol. But now Trump’s run is over, and it’s time for everyone--especially persons in your circumstance--to speak out in defense of our democracy, the rule of law, and the promotion of civil discourse. Given that your website indicates that you’ve not congratulated or even acknowledged the victory of our newly elected president, now is the time to do so. You--and as many of your colleagues as you can persuade--should immediately issue a statement along the following lines: 

20 January 2021

Press Release of Congressman Doug Lamborn & Colleagues

Today marks the inauguration of Joe Biden as our 46th president. We congratulate President Biden on his electoral victory, and we want to wish him all the best as he embarks upon his service as president of our great nation. We pledge to take every opportunity to work with our new president and his administration whenever we can to promote the well-being of the American people and our system of government. When we don’t agree, we pledge to act in good faith to pursue alternatives consistent with our form of government.

The result of the recent election has been doubted by some. However, the states, the Electoral College, the Congress, and the Courts (after numerous instances of judicial review) have all affirmed the sanctity and validity of the election results. Let there be no further question that Joe Biden won the election. One of the hallmarks of the success and longevity of the American electoral system arises from the tradition of fair play and good sportsmanship that we teach our sons and daughters each day. The American people have spoken, and even we who supported President Trump must acknowledge the election results according to provisions of our Constitution and laws. Any disagreement that any of us--from congressional representatives to ordinary voters-- have with the new Biden Administration must be expressed in words and not violence. Violence is the antithesis of democracy and the rule of law, and we must all reject it. 

God bless the Biden Administration, this Congress, and the United States of America. 

Thank you for your consideration. I eagerly await your response.

Stephen N. Greenleaf

Biden Wins--So What Now?

 

I write this on early Sunday morning 1 November (damned switch away from DST!). I write now because on the final day of the election ("Election Day"), as we await the verdict of the American voting public, I'll be too keyed-up to write anything coherent. As a lawyer, I've waited for many a verdict, and it doesn't get any easier even as you've been through it many times. Each case is unique; each time a significant change in the future awaits the outcome. This case, the case of Donald J. Trump, has now reached to point of closing arguments to the American voters (i.e., those who don't shirk their "jury duty"). This election is about whether this "jury" decides to free itself and open its future to better outcomes, or we chose to condemn ourselves to a future marked by fear, anger, and resentment, and the "leadership" of an incompetent, vile, and threatening man. 

If, when you read this, you have sound grounds to believe that Joe Biden has been elected president, then by all means (reasonable and legal) celebrate. However, I suspect most, like me, will more likely simply feel a sense of relief. We have not condemned ourselves. We will sigh and say "Thank goodness!" (For it is a sense of goodness that would allow such an outcome.) We will go to bed or if late enough, on to our daily activities, with a sense of ease, at least in the sense of reduced anxiety. 

So what can we expect with a President-elect Biden? Will we awaken to a scene of rainbows and unicorns and people joining around the campfire to sing Kumbaya together? 

No. 

In electing Biden--and even if he gets a Democratic Congress--we should understand as a nation that we have only broken the fever, that Trump is not the underlying cause of this dis-ease in our body politic. Trump is only an opportunistic secondary infection. Voters have acted as the antibodies to this infection, working to drive this infection away. But the body politic isn't cured once and for all of this dis-ease. Underlying Trump is a chronic dis-ease that allowed our nation to succumb to this secondary infection. Although the American voters have vanquished Trump, Trumpism, the syndrome that he embodies, will remain. American has suffered this infection of right-wing extremism for almost its entire 245 years. Sometimes the infection has been acute (the Civil War as the worst outbreak), but there have been other manifestations, such as the Klu Klux Klan uprisings during Reconstruction and the 1920s;  Joe McCarthy and witch-hunts of the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Civil Rights movement backlash and the candidacy of George Wallace, to name just a few examples of outbreaks. This politics of fear, anger, and resentment from the "right" has always been far more important than anything coming from the "left." Radicalism and violence have arisen from the left, but these outbreaks tend to be acute although sometimes intense infections that don't continue too long and that don't usually translate into electoral clout. The violence that we've seen in American cities this year has been the result of acute, intense frustration with police killings and brutality and all of the underlying conditions that allow such wrongdoing to continue. But never in my lifetime has the radical left gained any lasting power, but not so the right, especially to the degree manifest by Trump's administration. 

If we're lucky, we'll get something approaching politics as usual, only with a New Deal-like shift. We can hope for a change in policies that will begin some fundamental changes in the American political scene. A "Green New Deal" (of some sort) to address climate change and environmental degradation is a must. Also, we badly need significant reforms of our electoral system to end voter suppression schemes and to allow fair and proportional representation. (The Supreme Court required the states to practice "one person one vote" back in 1962 in Baker v. Carr. We should apply this principle to all elections.) A respect for minority rights is baked into the American Constitution even as they're too often ignored in practice. However, there's no brief for minority rule, which has become increasingly common. Only once have Republicans won the popular vote for president after 1988: Bush in 2004. And yet, in 2000 and 2016 Republicans won the presidency despite having lost the popular vote. 

In short, we live in a time of troubles. We know this even as we don't want to acknowledge it or we can't quite understand it. The human herd is spooked. This is a time when dictators and radical movements ferment and often gain power. And by "radical movements" in this instance I mean those who eschew politics, speech, and persuasion in favor of violence. There can be peaceful radical movements, such as the American Civil Rights movement as led by Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to name but one prominent example; and there have been many less well-known but nevertheless potent peaceful movements. We can expect--and no doubt need--some (peaceful) radical movements. Indeed, the change we need isn't generated or pushed by traditional political discourse, but it swells up into political discourse from below. We need to radically (to the root) re-think our relationships with each other, with others around the world, and with Mother Nature herself. The journey of modernity is over, and we need to move on to something better (and I'm not talking about silly "post-modernism). What that "better" consists of we must hash-out continually as we progress. We have to turn to prophets, but not those who scare us with hellfire and brimstone, but the whose who provide us with a vision, a new way of seeing and understanding ourselves and our world. Only when the prophets do their work, and the people convert can this change be channeled into the political sphere. I think (hope) that we have a start on it. If we don't make some very immediate--and yes, drastic--changes very soon, I fear that we'll be in a hell of a fix. (And I mean that in a literal sense as well.) 

So, yes, celebrate, and then let's get to work. 

Post Script: Monday 9 November 2020

I've decided to post the above. Nothing has changed my mind. The repudiation of Trump was not nearly as overwhelming as I'd hoped, and few Trump enablers--virtually the entire Republican Party--paid an electoral price. But otherwise, the post seems on point. We still have to deal with the problems of Trumpism or perhaps its more lethal (to democracy & our lives) mutations. 

Sharing: Yascha Mounk on the Prospects for the Left in the US, UK, & Western Europe

WARNING: This article (link below) is an in-depth analysis by a political scientist (Yascha Mounk) about voting patterns in Western Europe, UK, and the US. It assesses the prospects for left-leaning & hard-left parties gaining against the far-right populist trend in democracies. Thus, recommended only for political junkies with an analytic bent. Highly relevant to the current contest for the Democratic presidential nomination and the prospect of success for defeating the current president and his far-right populist/plutocratic coalition.

A couple of especially thought-provoking quotes: 

Because of the longstanding ideological dominance of the center left, the only people who could offer this alternative were orthodox leftists whose political outlook had been formed in the 1960s and ’70s, like Corbyn and Mélenchon, or new populists who forged their political identity in countercultural street protests following the 2008 financial crisis, like Iglesias. For a few brief years, their novelty allowed them to gain tremendous influence and popularity. But the more voters saw of them, the less they were convinced. On closer inspection, the new protagonists of the far-left tide turned out to be no more capable of commanding a large share of the vote than their long-defunct predecessors.

 The greening of the left is also affecting the Democratic Party: While Sanders has enjoyed the loudest voice in the past years, it is politicians who combine a commitment to the free market with a robust defense of the welfare state and an emphasis on the kinds of social and cultural issues that are of pressing importance to educated city-dwellers—like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, or Cory Booker—who increasingly represent the party’s mainstream.

(For an addendum of sorts, see Mounk's article in The Atlantic that reflects on the stunning electoral defeat of Corbyn & the Labour Party.) 

TThe coalitions that sustained the traditional left parties in the West have collapsed. New ones can be built—but it won’t be easy.

DEMOCRACYJOURNAL.ORG

Left for Dead

The coalitions that sustained the traditional left parties in the West have collapsed. New ones can be built—but it won’t be easy.