David Burns: Trump’s enablers sit down to a banquet of consequences

— Robert Louis Stevenson

January 6, 2021, a day that will live in — let’s see, infamy is already taken, how about — ignominy, the United States sat down to a banquet of consequences. The result was the trashing of the nation’s symbol of democracy, the Capitol building.

How we got to ignominy began on July 2, 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed the next year by the Voting Rights Act. Together, these laws dismantled segregation in the Jim Crow South, allowing America to at long last become an inclusive democracy.

Johnson knew the Democratic Party would pay a price for doing the right thing. He famously predicted his party may have “lost the South for a generation.” Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy in the 1968 presidential election seized on the opportunity to flip the South to red by playing on the ensuing white racial resentment. White Northern working class voters — ”Reagan Democrats” — flocked to the Republican Party in the  1980s, driven by economic anxiety and cultural conservatism.

The reshuffling of the two main political parties that had started in the 1960s came into focus in the 1990s and, along with it, a new white nationalism that was more likely to dress in camouflage than white hoods. The anti-government ideology that Ronald Reagan ushered in became an article of faith on the political right, and was first weaponized by Newt Gingrich in the House. At the same time, there was a right-wing militia movement, armed run-ins with the government at Ruby Ridge and Waco, and the deadliest ever act of domestic terrorism at Oklahoma City.

While the country was becoming more diverse, the Republican Party’s base skewed increasingly white and Christian. The Republican backlash to the election of the first Black president in 2008 included the anti-government Tea Party movement. Republicans in the House and Senate responded with a political strategy of obstructionism and government shutdowns, until Trump was elected in 2016 on a wave of white populism. Once in office, he mainstreamed white nationalism. The relative ease of Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party laid bare its rot.

It’s a mistake to treat Trump as a fluke, or an accident. His win in 2016 and near-win in 2020 are just the most recent stops on the Republican Party’s more than 50-year journey from respected partner in a two-party democratic system to white supremacist, anti-democratic party with fascist leanings. Against this backdrop, no one should be surprised by the Capitol siege.

The rot in the Republican Party also showed up in the speed at which Republicans lined up to support Trump after his 2016 win. Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Chris Stewart, in  particular, provided a whiplash-inducing example of this. They effortlessly discarded their loud, outspoken pre-election concerns about Trump’s character and fitness and eagerly enlisted in the Republican corps of Trump enablers. This corps later added other Utah Republicans, including Rep. Burgess Owens and Attorney General Sean Reyes.

But here’s the thing: No one gets to dabble in authoritarianism. You’re either for it, or you’re against it. You’re either actively fighting against it, or you’re enabling it.

The road these Trump enablers have taken is well traveled by in history. It’s the same one taken by other elites who facilitated the rise of fascists working to overthrow democratic governments. In the 1930s, for example, the Nazi Party’s rise was made possible by the cooperation of the German officer corps and the funding of wealthy backers who opposed the young Weimar Republic, which they smeared as “socialist” and “communist.” (Sound familiar?) These elites made the fatal mistake of believing they could dabble in fascism without being consumed by it.

The American elites who enabled Trump deserve all the condemnation that history will surely heap upon them. In exchange for tax cuts for the wealthy and a few Supreme Court appointments, they facilitated harm to our country that no other enemy, foreign or domestic, has ever inflicted. A symbol of hate, a Confederate flag was waved inside the Capitol for the first time on Jan. 6.

Political leaders like Lee and Stewart failed to honor their oath of office to uphold the Constitution, which expected them, regardless of party, to provide a check on Trump’s subversion of democracy. Instead, they defended him, made excuses for him, and bailed him out.

Stewart has been one of Trump’s most visible defenders on cable news over the last four years. He called the House impeachment inquiry a “coup d’état,” despite Trump’s obvious attempt to pervert democracy by manufacturing dirt on an electoral opponent. Lee and every other Republican senator except Mitt Romney voted against removing Trump.

Lee vouched for Trump’s good character during the 2020 election, likening him to Captain Moroni. He attacked social media companies that wanted to check Trump’s spread of disinformation. And he provided support for anti-democratic forces by tweeting “we’re not a democracy.” After the election, Lee rejected a Democratic senator’s concerns that Trump’s rhetoric could incite violence by his supporters. “The only violence that I’m aware of has occurred in connection with antifa,” he said.

Trump’s allegations of widespread voter fraud have been overwhelmingly rejected by the courts and election officials. Still, most Republicans, including Lee and Stewart, refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s win, giving oxygen to Trump and his supporters. Hours after the siege, almost two-thirds (138) of House Republicans, including Stewart and Owens, voted to sustain the bogus and anti-democratic “Big Lie” objections to Biden’s Electoral College victory, thus helping to incite the Capitol attackers by legitimizing their false belief that the election was stolen. History doesn’t forget.

The damage to the country caused by Republicans is like the damage done to the Capitol building: it’s heartbreaking to behold, but it can be fixed and replaced with the same or even better materials.

The broken windows and doors, defaced statues, damaged paintings, stolen objects, ransacked offices, graffiti and defiled spaces can be cleaned up, repaired, restored or replaced. Literally, every trace of these terrorists can be obliterated from the Capitol.

But the memory of the insurrection can never be undone. And that’s OK, because it’s a clarion call for action to repair our broken democracy. Seventy-four million Americans — including 865,140 (58.1%) Utahns — voted in November for a fascist for president, and thousands of them just staged a violent attack on the seat of government to reverse the electoral outcome.

The question of our time: How do we rebuild our democracy when one of the two main political parties has given up on it? Short answer: more democracy. The strength and unity needed to fix what ails us can only come from a renewed commitment to our shared, democratic values. And to allow for this, the Republican Party must be kept away from political power — especially the presidency — for a generation, or until it  purges its anti-democratic elements.

Democracy isn’t something that is done. It’s something that is being done. It’s hard, ongoing work.

A few hours after the attack on the Capitol, the Senate resumed its debate on the bogus Republican objections to the Electoral College results. In his speech to the chamber, Lee condemned the attack, but he didn’t mention Trump or the other Senate Republicans who had incited the mob. He instead referred the mob to state officials who control the voting process. “They should have been focused on their state capitals, not their nation’s capital, because our role is narrow, our role is defined, our role is limited.”

It thus fell to the junior senator from Utah to point out what democracy required in this situation: “The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That is the burden, and the duty, of leadership.”

David Burns lives in Salt Lake City.