Government: What happens when Trust is lost?
With 20/20 hindsight, we conservatives should have known that carloads of Leftist thugs would infiltrate the, otherwise, peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We could not, however, have anticipated that a Capitol Police officer would shoot and kill a female Air Force veteran while she was trying to gain access to the House Chamber.
If Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Alisha Babbitt had not been killed, she might have been arrested for "unlawful entry," a crime that does not merit the death penalty. Nevertheless, the still-mysterious circumstances of her death will be laid against the legacy of President Trump. Indeed, the MSM are turning the peaceful expression of outrage over the stolen presidential election into another milestone in the Left’s crusade against Donald J. Trump, a crusade that began even before he was elected to office.
Yet, the underlying reality is that the Left is scared to death of Donald Trump and the over 74 million work-a-day Americans who voted for his reelection. The Democrats know that unless the Make American Great Again Movement is destroyed, Republicans are almost certain to win the House in 2022 and, possibly, the White House and Senate in 2024. Hence, the talk of Impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment.
But the larger issue is this: When Democracy suffers a stolen election; the people -- the "demos" -- lose Trust in their government and the political process that surrounds the government. Once that Trust is lost, a government becomes Illegitimate. And once a government is perceived as Illegitimate, the "demos" begin to wonder which laws are valid and which laws are not. The end result is chaos.
Over the last 233 years, Americans have come to Trust that whatever mistakes are made by the Executive or Legislative Branches of government the Judicial Branch will be there to set matters right. Unfortunately, that did not happen with the presidential election of 2020.
George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley says, "Roughly 40% of the electorate have lingering doubts about whether their votes actually matter. Most of the cases challenging the election were not decided on the merits. Indeed, it seems they haven’t even been allowed Discovery. Instead, they were largely dismissed on Jurisdictional or Standing grounds or under the ’laches’ doctrine that they were brought too late. Those allegations need to be conclusively proven or disproven in the interests of the country."
Over 50 cases were dismissed without allowing any testimony. And 923 witnesses never got their day in court. If our Judicial system, to include the U.S. Supreme Court that had two prime cases laid before it, had adjudicated the lawsuits brought by those alleging election fraud, it is unlikely thousands of Americans would have felt compelled to surround the Capitol to protest the certification of a fraudulent election.
As for violence, ask yourself cui bono? Who benefits? Certainly not those who went to Washington to peacefully protest a stolen election. That points the finger at the Left, at Antifa, and at the hypocritical MSM that remained silent while rioters looted, burned, and vandalized: Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles. Go figure.
©2021. William Hamilton.
|
