Our quadrennial presidential elections are a time for assessing the past and imagining the future.
Unfortunately, there is a pernicious tendency for our political parties, especially in this time of sharply differentiated party ideologies, to ascribe the other side’s views to an evil animus; to see political opponents not as our fellows, but as our sworn diabolical foes.
The inability of many Democrats to accept the result of the 2016 election, as we are now beginning to discover, led not only to "resistance" in the streets, but also to a scheme to undermine the new administration by unfounded allegations of conspiring with Russians, a scheme which illegally used our investigative and intelligence agencies to further partisan political ends.
That scheme, evident in the shamefully still ongoing prosecution and persecution of Lt. General Michael Flynn, has been poisoning not only executive agencies, but also our courts, undermining Americans’ proud boast that ours is a government of laws and not men.
Fortunately, there are signs from the U.S. Department of Justice and its leader, U.S. Atty. General William "Bill" Barr, that the Flynn imbroglio will soon be brought to an end, and that the perpetrators of the Russiagate hoax will be prosecuted.
It's crucial, however, that animosities stirred up in the 2020 presidential contest do not perpetuate and exacerbate the divisions from 2016 that still remain to be healed.
The enforced quarantine as a result of COVID-19, and its attendant economic dislocations, as well as longstanding social and economic grievances, have led to riots and looting in many of our urban centers, and to the shuttering of many of our cherished dining, entertainment, and shopping venues.
There is much, then, needing repair. There is much still to be accomplished.
There must be a means to return our cities and the country in general to a situation where our people can once again gather in churches, theaters, restaurants, and other spaces jointly to celebrate the joys life offers and the soul-enhancing aspects of our shared culture.
This is unlikely to happen unless we can move beyond the tendency to ascribe malevolence, incompetence, and blame to those with whom we disagree. The beginnings of the Democrats’ campaign for the presidency, and, in particular, the introduction of the Democrats’ designated vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Kamala Harris, are not promising.
The nation already knew Sen. Harris as the hard-driving former California prosecutor who relentlessly and cruelly tormented the highly respected Brett Kavanaugh when he appeared at his Senate Confirmation hearings. Her behavior in that venue might reasonably lead to wondering whether a prosecutorial and adversarial mindset is the appropriate one for a politician who ought to be engaged in healing our nation's wounds.
There were some sentiments expressed by both former Vice-President Joe Biden, and by Sen. Harris, at her August 12 unveiling, that were noble, about the need to bring us together as a nation, and to maintain the "possibility" of achievement and fulfillment for all Americans. There was also, from Sen. Harris, some touching reminiscing about her friendship with Biden’s late son, Beau, who was Delaware’s attorney general and Harris’s colleague.
But — there were also insidious falsehoods, and a venomous and unfounded bill of indictment against Donald Trump.
Biden spent much of his speech repeating the canard that three years ago, reflecting on the conflict between neo-Nazis and their foes in Charlottesville, Virginia Donald Trump had said "there were good people on both sides," suggesting that Donald Trump was the first American president to have openly sympathized with racists and anti-Semites.
The truth, of course, was that the president’s remark about "good people" had only to do with those who wanted to preserve the monuments of the leaders of our Civil War era. The destruction of monuments — even to George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Christopher Columbus — which is now ongoing received no condemnation from either Biden or Harris, and Harris even implied that she sympathized with those involved in our current urban disturbances.
Similarly stoking the animosity to our current president, Sen. Harris suggested that Mr. Trump cared only about himself, and that he was solely responsible for every death caused by COVID-19, for the loss of jobs, for the closing of schools, and for an abnormally high rate of unemployment in the country.
Harris claimed America suffered more from the virus than other countries.
These were shameful falsehoods, especially as the responsibility for public health actually falls squarely on state governors and local officials, and the Trump administration’s pandemic actions have arguably saved many lives and reignited the economy.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence now have an opportunity to step away from the politics of division and venom, and to demonstrate that Republicans really do offer the promise of national prosperity, and of equal signifance, pride to all Americans.
Stephen B. Presser is the Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History Emeritus at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, the Legal Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and a contributor to The University Bookman. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and has taught at Rutgers University, the University of Virginia, and University College, London. He has often testified on constitutional issues before committees of the United States Congress, and is the author of "Recapturing the Constitution: Race, Religion, and Abortion Reconsidered" (Regnery, 1994) and "Law Professsors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law" (West Academic, 2017). Presser was a Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at the University of Colorado's Boulder Campus for 2018-2019. Read Stephen B. Presser's Reports — More Here.
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