In defense of beleaguered democracy and truth: Another warning and an example

The warning

Terrible thinking and tactics by America's ARR (authoritarian radical right) are worsening fast. A long, detailed NYT opinion by Damon Linker includes this warning (opinion not behind paywall):

We shouldn’t grow complacent about just how dangerous it all is — and how much more dangerous it could become. The efforts to overturn the 2020 election failed. We’re told that’s because the institutions held. But it’s more accurate to say that most of the individuals holding powerful positions within those institutions — the White House, the Pentagon, the courts, election officials in Georgia and other states — sided with the Constitution over Mr. Trump’s desire to remain in power.

But what if key individuals decide differently the next time they are faced with this kind of choice? What if they have come to believe that the country is in such dire straits — has reached a state of apocalyptic decadence — that democracy is a luxury we can no longer afford?

A coalition of intellectual catastrophists on the American right is trying to convince people of just that — giving the next generation of Republican officeholders, senior advisers, judges and appointees explicit permission and encouragement to believe that the country is on the verge of collapse. Some catastrophists take it a step further and suggest that officials might contemplate overthrowing liberal democracy in favor of revolutionary regime change or even imposing a right-wing dictatorship on the country.

The list of people making these arguments includes former officials in the Trump administration, some of whom are likely to be considered for top jobs in the event of a Trump restoration in 2024. It includes respected scholars at prestigious universities and influential think tanks. The ideas about the threat of an all-powerful totalitarian left and the dismal state of the country — even the most outlandish of them — are taken seriously by conservative politicians as well as prominent influencers on the right.

That makes this a crucial time to familiarize ourselves with and begin formulating a response to these ideas. If Mr. Trump manages to win the presidency again in 2024, many of these intellectual catastrophists could be ready and willing to justify deeds that could well bring American liberal democracy to its knees.

The Claremont Catastrophists

Probably the best-known faction of catastrophists and the one with the most direct connection to Republican politics is led by Michael Anton and others with ties to the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank in California. Mr. Anton’s notorious Claremont Review of Books essay in September 2016 called the contest between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton “The Flight 93 Election.” Mr. Anton, who would go on to serve as a National Security Council official in the Trump administration, insisted the choice facing Republicans, like the passengers on the jet hijacked by terrorists intent on self-immolation in a suicide attack on the White House or the Capitol on Sept. 11, was to “charge the cockpit or you die.” (For a few months in 2000 and 2001, Mr. Anton was my boss in the communications office of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and we have engaged in spirited debates over the years.)

Mr. Anton’s “Flight 93” essay originally appeared on a website with modest traffic, but two days later Rush Limbaugh was reading it aloud in its entirety on his radio show. The essay set the tone of life-or-death struggle (and related imagery) that is common among catastrophists.

The Christian Reverse Revolutionaries

Those on the right primarily concerned about the fate of traditionalist Christian morals and worship in the United States insist that we already live in a regime that oppresses and brutalizes religious believers and conservatives. And they make those charges in a theologically inflected idiom that’s meant to address and amplify the right’s intense worries about persecution by progressives.

Among the most extreme catastrophists writing in this vein is Stephen Wolfe, whose book “The Case for Christian Nationalism” calls for a “just revolution” against America’s “gynocracy” (rule by women) that emasculates men, persuading them to affirm “feminine virtues, such as empathy, fairness and equality.” In its place, Mr. Wolfe proposes the installation of a “Christian prince,” or a form of “theocratic Caesarism.”

Other authors aspire to greater nuance by calling the dictatorship weighing down on religious believers soft totalitarianism, usually under the rule of social-justice progressivism.  

...... 

Some will undoubtedly suggest we shouldn’t be unduly alarmed about such trends. These are just a handful of obscure writers talking to one another, very far removed from the concerns of Republican officeholders and rank-and-file voters.

But such complacency follows from a misunderstanding of the role of intellectuals in radical political movements. These writers are giving Republican elites permission and encouragement to do things that just a few years ago would have been considered unthinkable.

In a second term, Mr. Trump’s ambition is to fire tens of thousands of career civil servants throughout the federal bureaucracy and replace them with loyalists. ....

The example

Salon writes about antics that Trump's attorneys are increasingly engaging in to derail the New York civil fraud trial. If Trump loses this case, it could bankrupt him. What his attorneys are doing is now openly attacking the judge in court filings and making false statements in open court directly to the judge. Trump is trying to make the judge lose emotional control and react in a way that provides an opportunity for Trump to get his case dismissed for bias and misconduct by the judge. Trump is openly baiting the judge.

I am not aware of such open, direct attacks in past court cases, although it's possible some of this has happened in the past. But what this example represents is a complete breakdown of norms and decorum in defense of how the courts work. This is what a direct attack on democracy looks like.

Salon writes:

“Absolutely untrue”: Judge shames Trump lawyer for using 

Breitbart article to attack clerk in court

Trump lawyer threatened to push for mistrial after citing complaint from Twitter user "applying the 69th Amendment"

[On Friday] Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron opened by raising his concerns about the former president and his legal team's jabs at Engoron's principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, over their perceptions of "bias."

“I’m worried about this,” Engoron told the defense, according to The Daily Beast.

“To the extent that there is the perception of bias,” Trump lawyer Chris Kise replied, he needed to “as a lawyer… at least mark it.”

Engoron said he didn't consider the case to be political and “promised not to pound the table again, the bench.” But he reiterated a Thursday assertion that he had an “unfettered right to get assistance” from his clerk, who sits at his side on the bench, and explained he had "no idea" how that act demonstrates bias.

“You can say whatever you want about me,” he said. “And that has been taken advantage of. I think that’s where there would be any appearance of bias, but I cut this case right down the middle.”

In response, Kise dove into a rant about how the matter was "treading in a dangerous area."

“The entire country, if not the world, is watching this proceeding,” Kise argued. “And the U.S. heretofore has been a model for integrity and impartiality in the judicial system, since its founding. Nothing in here should create any appearance that the adherence to those principles has wavered… Yes, as a judge you’re entitled to receive [assistance], but from someone who has potentially demonstrable bias… and the manner in which that has taken place, we at least have to make a record.”

Kise rehashed the same argument he made at the end of the day Thursday, griping about how “things are frequently, if not inordinately, against us on every major issue.” He said he felt as if he were taking on “two adversaries, not one,” and referenced a Thursday night article calling for Greenfield to be disbarred because of her political donations to Democrats.

The allegations in the article, he said were, "delivered to the court" on Friday morning, asserting that he may move for a mistrial and adding that the same "information" about "extrajudicial conduct” was brought up last month.

"It's not information, it's an allegation," Engoron fired back, saying that he had no idea what article Kise was referring to and hadn't seen it.

Though he admitted to not remembering the specific publication, Kise said he thought it "may be Breitbart," which is a website once run by Trump's ex-strategist Steve Bannon. The Daily Beast confirmed that the story in question was a "thinly sourced Breitbart article about a complaint filed by a Wisconsin man not involved in the trial."

Specifically, the article is sourced entirely to an X/Twitter user from Wisconsin whose account bio reads, "Applying the 69th Amendment to the Internet!" according to The Messenger. That user filed a bar complaint, circulated on a website with a URL in Greenfield's name that was created on Oct. 4, 2023, the day after Engoron first issued the gag order against Trump. The user's feed is also rife with attacks of the judge.

When Kise disclosed the origin of the claims on the pro-Trump website, audible groans resounded in the courtroom.

At that point, Engoron seemed to have reached his wits end, calling Kise's claim that he had been made aware of the story on Friday morning, "absolutely untrue, okay?!”

“I would have remembered receiving such an allegation,” he roared, adding. “Let everybody in the room decide what they think of Breitbart… It's a shame things have descended to this level.”

Note the two instances where the judge lost emotional control. Pounding on the bench in anger and yelling ("roaring") at Kise. Trump will file for a mistrial and cite both of those incidents as evidence of bias and a basis to get the lawsuit thrown out and dismissed with prejudice. Dismissed with prejudice means that the lawsuit can never be refiled and Trump walks away unscathed from his years of fraud.

If Engoron's emotional control fails, Trump could very well win this lawsuit, which he has already lost because Engoron has already found that Trump did commit lots of fraud over the years.

This is how the ARR works and how we seeing attacks on democracy and the rule of law play out. Why Kise hasn't been sanctioned and disbarred is a legit question. The answer is simple. Trump would use it as evidence of bias by Engoron. 

In my feeble defense of democracy and the rule of law, I will write to the New York state bar asking for Kise to be investigated and punished for his blatant ethics violations. Maybe that will provoke a response. At this point, all pro-democracy institutions including state bars need to be proactive against attacks right freaking now, not later. 

Chris Kise

Former Florida solicitor general

and ARR anti-democracy warrior