Leadership in Defense of Democracy

It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

—Abraham Lincoln, 1838

Democrats see Trump’s second term as an existential threat to American democracy. Much of Trump’s base saw Hillary Clinton as an existential threat. That was their “Flight 93 election” — a time to charge the cockpit. Now they are even more afraid.

More than ever we need a leader, a true statesman, to save us from ourselves. As Lincoln warned, we are our only existential danger.

Not entirely sure he wanted to win in 2016, Trump is now genuinely fearful of losing, not least because of the legal and financial consequences. Being more fearful, he uses his new power to escalate violence with armed federal forces.

But he also stokes the right’s existential fears with baseless claims of massive mail-in voting fraud. And the left legitimately fears the GOP’s voter-suppression operations.

Violence-prone tensions will escalate to an expected peak on election day when Trump hopes to “have sheriffs and police chiefs and everybody [menacingly] watching.” Then we can settle in and wait as the mail-in ballots are duly counted.

MSNBC wasn’t buying it. “If people take to the streets, what will you do?” asked Stephanie Ruhle. And Biden reassured her, “The last thing we need is the equivalent of a coup. … No one’s going to back him.”

The Flight-93-election crowd isn’t buying it either. “Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talk about staging a coup.” Strangely, this is based on the center-left Transition Integrity Project (TIP) with its war-game exercises that simulate the post-voting transition period.

The TIP points to a need for leadership that only Joe Biden can fulfill. “Escalating political violence,” it says, is a major threat during a likely “rocky” transition. If Biden were to seize this opportunity, both Biden and the nation would benefit.

Unable to rein in Trump or his militias, Biden can still send a crucial message to the country by speaking to the left in a way that will leave Trump’s violence unprotected by false equivalences.

Left tribalism is all that’s stopping Biden. Our first tribal defense is to blame protest violence on right-wing agent provocateurs and say move on, nothing to see here. They definitely play a role. The Boogaloo Bois, who typically carry guns, are out to kill cops and start a race war. Most lethal violence associated with protests comes from such groups.

But most of the non-lethal anti-police violence has clearly been far-left, as was the antifa harassment of small businesses in Seattle. And the many protests organized after dark give the lie to peaceful intentions.

Our second defense is to point to the hundreds of millions of dollars in damage associated with left demonstrations and say this pales in comparison to the damage caused by inequality in the capitalist system. True, but this politically correct answer ignores … politics.

Left violence helps right-wing opponents while damaging allies.

Perhaps this is more easily seen when it’s not so close to home. The most famous show of force by right-wing extremists happened in Charlottesville N.C. And it backfired. It damaged Trump. The same is true in reverse. 

The Chicago looting of August 10 injured 13 police and did millions in damage. BLM responded by defending the looting, demanding the abolition of the Chicago Police Dept., and ripping into Lori Lightfoot, a superb Democratic mayor, for upholding the law. “Looting is reparations.” “Defund the Chicago police,” and “loot it all back.” The right-wing press had a field day.

“Looting is not protesting,” said Joe Biden, three weeks later. “It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.” Better than more silence.

Finally, a week later he condemned antifa for the first time. Asked on local TV by the Lebanon PA county reporter Barbara Barr, “Do you condemn antifa?,” Biden said, “Yes, I do.” Does that make up for Keith Ellison, a former DNC deputy chair, recommending antifa’s Handbook?

Only 24% of the country sees Biden as reducing protest violence. On far-left violence, Biden needs to take a strong and forthright stand. The middle of the country — the exhausted majority — would breathe a sigh of relief, and he would stand a good chance of a landslide victory.

Doing so would make a great leap toward curbing political violence, which escalates mainly as right and left extremes reinforce each other.

To take the reins of leadership, Biden needs to say, Although only the tiniest fraction of demonstrators are violent, they have the power to undo all the good done by the rest. Antifa especially, a mere 1% of 1%, is complicit in Trump’s destruction of American democracy, and far more helpful to him than his Proud Boys are.

We must end violence in our name because it is wrong, because it hurts fellow Americans, and because it endangers our democracy.

He should also call on all Americans to have the moral courage to speak out even when the problem is “on our side.” Should the non-violent demonstrators show such courage, they would transform the country.

If Biden were to show such courage, Trump would find himself disarmed in many ways, and the Democrats would once again be seen as true patriots.