The Week That Was

Can we keep the Republic?

Jan 09, 2021

Note to Readers: This post is late due to writing about the events of this week, some of which are ongoing as I write. For the same reason, Part II of “The Return of the Hawks”, my thoughts on the Federal budget deficit, will be published next week.

Dr. James McHenry of Maryland, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, recorded in his notes that, on the final day of deliberation, Ben Franklin was approached by a Mrs. Powell as he left Independence Hall. McHenry reported that Mrs. Powell asked Franklin,“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”

Think of our political system, a republic or representative democracy, as if it were a machine with lots of moving parts. Think of government as the hardware and democracy as the software. For the machine to operate effectively, quality software is needed. No matter how well-designed the hardware -the political system- is, if the software is substandard, the machine will not run smoothly. Simple logic requires that if we are to, in Ben Franklin’s words, “keep our Republic”, we must constantly work to maintain and improve the software.

If bits and bytes are the basis of software code, so then are people the basic ingredient of democracy. The word democracy (from the Greek demos, “people”, and kratos, “rule”) means government of, by, and for the people. Governing ourselves, like most human endeavors, is not a clear and simple exercise, often contentious and messy. It is unreasonable to expect unanimity among the members of a politically organized society. One of the tasks of a political system is to provide peaceful means to settle disagreements.

Democracy confers upon us both rights and responsibilities. How well we manage these rights and responsibilities, and how well we each relate to other persons and groups in a political sense is described as civic virtue, a concept passed down to us from the ancient philosophers. While the term is vague, we accept that it encompasses a wide range of human behavior. In our society, manifestations of civic virtue would include adhering to the rule of law, respecting the rights of others, voting, keeping informed on salient political issues, agreeing to handle disputes in a lawful fashion… In short, any and all behaviors indicative of holding up one’s end of the social contract. And to the extent a majority of the populace exhibits qualities of civic virtue, we may conclude that democracy is functioning in a salutary manner.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
George Bernard Shaw

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, we had the opportunity to witness two signature events of our political system. These events were a test of our collective civic virtue.

How’d we do?

Tuesday was the day of the special election in Georgia to fill the state’s two seats in the US Senate. In a surprising result, the Democratic candidates, John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, defeated the incumbent Republicans, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. The political importance of the twin victories is allowing the Democrats to achieve a 50-50 tie in the Senate, and, as a consequence, the majority by the eventual tie-breaking vote of soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris. More significant for Democrats, it ended the six-year reign of Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, one of the most powerful posts in the Federal government.

The biggest winner was democracy. The 4.4 million ballots cast in the run-off was a record. Special elections typically attract a low-turnout, but, with the Senate majority at stake, the importance of the election engaged the voters on both sides.

On the following day in Washington, the Senate and House of Representatives met in joint session to complete the pro forma act of opening and counting the ballots of the Electoral College electors and certifying the results of the November 3rd Presidential election. What is an almost ceremonial event was fraught even before Vice-President Pence gaveled Congress into session. After the election, Donald Trump refused to accept his loss to Joe Biden. His campaign went to court over 60 times seeking to overturn election results in swing states won by Biden and lost all but one of the suits. He tried to coerce state officials to discard ballots. Seeing the counting of the electoral votes as his last chance to reverse the outcome, he prevailed upon Vice-President Pence to reject electoral votes in order to, something that was not within the VP’s authority. His last resort was to hold a rally on Wednesday, attracting a crowd of his followers whom he urged to march to the Capitol and protest.

What followed was a shocking scene as the mob, on reaching the Capitol with Congress sitting in joint session, overwhelmed the insufficient force of the Capitol Police and broke into the building. Most of us have seen the video images of rioters smashing windows, hanging Trump flags off the Capitol Building, rampaging through the halls of Congress, and breaking into legislator’s offices. Violent confrontations resulted in five deaths, including a Capital police officer and a rioter shot by police.

It was a sad day for the nation.

Civic virtue also went missing in the Congress itself. Led by Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, 13 Senators and two-thirds of the GOP House members announced prior to Wednesday that they would object to accepting the certified votes of several states. With no possibility of these objections being sustained, this action was strictly performative, a signal to Trump supporters. For Cruz and Hawley, it appeared as a cynical play to garner the support of these supporters in advance of a run for President in 2024. On Wednesday, the assault by the mob interrupted the proceedings. After five hours, Congress reconvened and the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was confirmed.

The perseverance of the Congress to convene immediately after the building had been cleared and the commitment of Vice-President Pence to stick to his Constitutionally-mandated role was a victory for Constitutional government. Yet, at the same time, democracy took a hit on Wednesday. Incited by a venal President, the mob invaded the Capitol intent on disrupting the proceedings. It has been described as an insurrection. Though it failed, the fragility of the Republic was exposed.

Aftermath

It is too soon to know all of what was behind Wednesday’s events. There are obvious signs that some of the mob came prepared for what ensued. There is wide-spread opinion that Trump incited the crowd. There have been calls, especially from Democrats, that Senators Cruz and Hawley resign from Congress because of their role in fostering false claims of election fraud that Trump promulgated. Questions have been raised about the lack of robust security at the Capitol when there had been indications, especially on social media, of potential trouble Wednesday.

What is known is that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as President on January 20th and Kamala Harris as Vice-President. The incoming Administration will face a host of pressing issues, the pandemic crisis being paramount. For the rest of us, citizens and political leaders alike, it may be time to upgrade the software of democracy and tend to our civic virtue.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

Sam Shepard

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