Jonathan Turley has spoken.
As John Lewis and 66 other Democratic members of Congress boycotted the festivities surrounding the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, they got an earful from pundits about how wrong it was to question the “legitimacy” of an elected US president.
“For all of John Lewis’s heroic service to his country,” wrote the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus (1/16/17), “the Georgia congressman’s assertion that Donald Trump is not a ‘legitimate‘ president was not appropriate or helpful.”
“In the end, the protests are not about legitimacy,” declared Jonathan Turley (USA Today, 1/19/17). “Trump is by any measure our duly elected and legitimate president. It is about a refusal to accept legitimate results.”
“I’m ready to grit my teeth and accept Trump as our legitimate president for the sake of national unity,” said Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune, 1/17/17), “just as I hoped America would unite behind President Obama, whether they voted for him or not.” He went on to “suspect that Lewis, not being a stupid man by any means, knows Trump is ‘legitimate,’ at least in the constitutionally legal sense.”
While acknowledging that “moral legitimacy” was “in the eye of the beholder,” Page concluded that “as good Americans, we should support our newly elected president in good faith, even as we criticize his ways—and look ahead to the next election.”
Real Clear Politics warns John Lewis against questioning authority.
In Real Clear Politics (1/17/17), Carl Cannon and Caitlin Huey-Burns wrote of “The Danger of Delegitimizing Trump,” which turned out to be a warning that there might be “long-term ramifications to these guerrilla tactics that Republicans can choose to employ the next time they lose the White House.” So Republicans might start questioning the legitimacy of a Democratic president? Ominous.
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg (San Francisco Chronicle, 1/18/17) complained that “Lewis is…refusing to attend Trump’s inauguration and arguing that Trump cannot be a legitimate president because of Russian meddling in the election.” His rebuttal to that was peculiar:
Lewis may have reason to believe that Trump did not win fair and square, but questioning Trump’s legitimacy is exactly what the Russians probably wanted from the beginning: to undermine Western and American faith and confidence in democracy.
So Goldberg’s argument is that you should not question the legitimacy of a president who, through “Russian meddling,” likely “did not win fair and square”—because, otherwise, the Russians win? Got it.
Goldberg noted as “a sign of Lewis’ partisanship that he also boycotted George W. Bush’s first inauguration because he didn’t think Bush was legitimate either.” That’s the Bush, you may recall, who lost the popular vote, but was awarded the presidency when a partisan majority of the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount in Florida. That George W. Bush.
(Goldberg also cited, as an example of “poisonous cynicism,” Lewis’ “insinuating that voting for Mitt Romney might lead America to ‘go back’ to the days of fire hoses, police dogs and church bombings.” Those who have followed the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline are aware that the use of water cannon and attack dogs against protesters is alive and well in 21st century America. As for church bombings, the BATF has reported at least 2,378 cases of arson at houses of worship over the past 20 years—if you’ll pardon my cynicism.)
Why is it so important to corporate media commentators that presidential legitimacy not be questioned? By and large, they are part of, and identify with, an establishment whose fragility is all too evident. That’s why you get circular arguments like Marcus pleading for the public to accept election results because accepted election results are what the public needs:
At some point, after the procedures established by the rule of law have run their course, the country needs to accept the result, however difficult it may be…. Trump is a legitimate president because our system demands finality and acceptance even in the presence of uncertainty. Posting an asterisk next to an election result is not healthy for democracy.
That’s completely wrong: Refusal to accept undemocratic results is the only thing that has moved democracy forward. This country came into being when people refused to accept a system in which the chief executive was the first-born son of the previous chief executive. Even though hereditary monarchy was the procedure established by the rule of law, the signers of the Declaration of Independence rejected it, holding that it was their inalienable right to alter or abolish their form of government.
(graphic by WikiMedia/CircleAdrian)
The new system of government, of course, still left almost everything to be desired from the standpoint of democracy. From 1789 until 1824, the proportion of the US population taking part in presidential elections never got above 4 percent, and usually was closer to 1 percent. With the extension of suffrage to non-propertied white men, to African-American men, to women, to young adults, the country came closer to being a society where the people actually ruled—but this happened only when the people refused to concede the legitimacy of systems designed to disenfranchise.
It’s easy to see now that a country where only wealthy white men could vote was not a democracy. For some of us, it’s equally obvious that the system we have now—where a candidate who loses by 2.9 million votes is declared the winner, due to an archaic structure designed to preserve the power of slaveholders; where voter suppression removes voters from the rolls or simply leaves their votes uncounted; where vast disparities of wealth allow a handful of billionaires to alter the course of elections—cannot call itself democratic either.
Only when we refuse to accept such results—when we say that a rigged system has no legitimacy—will these problems be addressed. It’s the boycotters, and not the legitimacy-mongers, who are pushing this country toward what it ought to be.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
The entire Republican campaign was based on the most outrageous Trump lie of birtherism, that tried to de-legitimize Obama.
You don’t have to discount Lewis’ courageous actions a half century ago to look askance at those in the present day.
Unfortunately, today, he, like many other “civil rights veterans”, is a card carrying member of the “black misleadership class” (Glen Ford’s term), fully invested in the status quo of a rotting Democratic Party.
His reasoning for boycotting the inauguration is in line with that posture, blaming those nasty Rooskies, without anything approaching solid evidence, for the failure to defeat the most loathsome major party presidential candidate in modern US history.
Anyone with a shred of human decency can enumerate any number of reasons to reject DDT’s legitimacy. Basing one’s repudiaton on a dishonest gambit to lay blame for his ascension at the feet of “foreign intrigue” doesn’t speak well for a person who at one point in life was willing to suffer greatly for his principles.
“So Republicans might start questioning the legitimacy of a Democratic president? Ominous.’ Old news; Trump’s birther ploy already accomplished that.
Consider increasing the sensitivity of your sarcasm detector.
“It’s the boycotters, and not the legitimacy-mongers, who are pushing this country toward what it ought to be.”
Amen, Brother James! Keep up the good work!
I agree with Doug Latimer’s comment above. Thanks, Doug. From what I have gathered about Lewis’ objection to Trump’s presidential legitimacy, it is because, in his mind, “the Russkies done it”. Lewis is merely trotting-out onto the field as a good Democrat, repeating the lie that (as George Stephanopolous and an uncountable number of desperate Democrats) Russia “hacked the election”. I am very upset with Team Hillary and the Democratic Party, who have pushed this bogus narrative in order to somehow save face by blaming a boogieman, in this case Russia and “Puty”.
Obama has played along for the sake of the party (to the detriment of the country and world), sending-in more tanks and troops to boost NATO’s presence along Russia’s border. An hysterical Rachel Maddow sows fear amongst millions of MSNBC viewers, by questioning if Trump will have the wisdom to continue the pressure on Putin, led by militant hawks John McCain and his girlfriend Lindsey Graham. It’s so odd now, how Democrats have joined with warpig Republicans to hurry-up WW3. Where was Lewis when the Democratic Party conspired to deprive Bernie Sanders of their party’s nomination? Lewis’ past good works do not earn him a pass to be stupid in the present without being being challenged on it. That said, Trump is a belligerent idiot, and I do not condone or endorse his approach to Lewis’ claim that the election is illegitimate.
David, that those who claim to wish to “take back” the party engage in the same misdirective Russian bear bashing as the “New Democrats” makes plain to me the validity of the proposition that it’s time to kick the donkey to the curb, and finally hop on an independent horse that places principle above personality.
Sanders, Ellison, Warren et alia may question aspects of exploitocracy, but the underlying foundation of its edifice is left unscathed, as evidenced by the plethora of contradictions evident in their political careers.
Whatever their reasons, they will never be more than loyal “reformers” of a system designed to pit us against each other in the name of “competition”, exalting profit as the central driver of human motivation.
This has always led to misery and death, but we now face extinction as the iceberg hoves into view (ironic metaphor, that), and all they can offer is a revision of the seating arrangements on the deck.
I have no illusions. We are almost assuredly doomed.
But please, let’s go down with a clear eyed intent to do whatever reason, courage and conscience demand of us, so that at the end, we can be said to have gone out with a defiant bang, rather than a delusional whimper.
Well said, Doug and David! The Democratic party’s failure to take responsibility for its own mistakes is sickening to me. And it’s especially troubling to be blaming the Russians instead of looking hard at redistricting, voter suppression, American hacking (I believe the Kochs own some of those diebold machines, don’t they?), and intimidation. Our system is broken, and we need to fix it.
We also need a meaningful left wing. The Democrats are now right of center, for the most part, and the Republicans have fallen off a cliff. Somehow we have to move away from the right wing. When we look back on this period, I think people will see that Bill Clinton did a lot to push the country to the right.
Great column, anyway. Trump is NOT my president, and the Russians have almost nothing to do with that.
I guess so long as everyone keeps watching the circus, the empire will swallow seeing its favourite gladiator being chopped up.
I can think of another reason that the established corporate media would promote the illusion of legitimacy: fear of what would happen to Wall Street if the transition were not “orderly.” The accepted wisdom is that the markets hate uncertainty, and nothing says “uncertainty” like “the US just experienced a bloodless coup.”
Empirically, few things make Wall Street happier than a 1% coup. Note that the S&P 500 actually went *up* after SCOTUS chose W, and didn’t start going down until W began the usual establishment-Republican talking-down of the economy (to ensure that the remainder of his term would show growth). You can see this in (e.g.) Quandl by restricting the series to (e.g.) 2000-11-01 to 2001-0501.
Rather, what would *terrify* Goldman Sachs et al would be a US counter-revolution *against* a 1% coup.
“questioning Trump’s legitimacy is exactly what the Russians probably wanted from the beginning.”
Hmm, sounds eerily familiar to the “…then the terrorists win” rhetoric pushed after 9/11. You’d think there was a playbook or something.
Thanks y’all, for proving CJ so very right. There is indeed comfort and solace to be found amongst the fellow indoctrinated.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/