"no serious claim of military or political authority made on behalf of the assembled mob".
So, "hang Mike Pence" was just a joke? the gallows were just theatre? The armed insurgents attempting to break down the doors of Congress were just fooling around?
And, if they had found Mike Pence- they wouldn't have forced him against his will, under threat of execution, to reject the legally appointed electors? They wouldn't have forced Congress at gunpoint to vote in favor of their chosen result? And they wouldn't have used the gallows to execute any number of members of Congress they said they wanted to catch?
There were also those military and ex-military folks carrying zip ties and that one group that charged into the Capitol in formation. A military analyst said this is the behavior of military on a capture-and-kill operation.
If you see the New York Times as being the screenwriters' room for a TV series called "Narrative of Record," you'd see the staff columnists as an ensemble cast of quirky high-achiever characters whose idiosyncrasies are represented by their prose.
Theoretically, each is supposed to represent a microcosm of America, or the ideological and demographic diversity of American elites. And of course, try to maintain a 50% Democratic/Republican balance.
"The question now is whether conservative elites will decide that someone like Trump and his most radical followers provide the better alternative—the less “disorderly” path—and they therefore decide to endorse another illegal gambit for power like January 6."
I think there is little question that the conservatives elites have already made that decision. Why else is Elise Stefanik speaking of the J9 "hostages"? Why else has the Heritage Foundation mobilized to provide the advance planning that Trump's "Thug Tank" guys (Bannon, Stone, et al) don't have the discipline to achieve?
Yes, there are some donors who much prefer to see DeSantis or Haley in the White House. But one wonders why they imagine that Trump would accept a primary loss from them anymore than he would accept a loss to Biden. The public "disorder" would just start sooner––a J9 style disruption of the Republican convention, for instance.
> What transforms a political event from a violent riot or lawless mob (which Jan. 6 plainly was) to a genuinely insurrectionary event is the outright denial of the authority of the existing political order and the attempt to establish some alternative order in its place.
I said to myself "this is a 'wE'rE a RePuBLiC nOt A dEmOcRaCy' " guy, and, of course, he is:
From then on, it is useless to point out the obvious flaws in his arguments, since he basically will never see an attack on democratic institutions as an act of insurrection. Jan 6 to him is not an insurrection because he is 100% fine with not having a democracy as long as his guys is in power.
Burmila: "Those six simple words fill the very different needs of several key demographics in the ascendant right.
For glib elitist types who openly believe in their own superiority, it is a straightforward endorsement of paternalistic, Burkean, “your interests, not your will” representation. To Fox News Stepdads who have spent decades venerating the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, it is an appeal to authority—So was it written, by the great Men themselves!—with the condescending tone natural to the mediocre white guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but is certain of its accuracy. And in the most common scenario, it is simply a way to create the appearance of having said something profound while saying nothing at all."
Douthat's argument seems to be that it is not an insurrection if you have some kind of legal argument. The Confederates had a much stronger legal argument than the Trumpazoids--and yet the 14th Amendment was aimed square at them.
Very, very good. You'll never reach the coup's partisans but at least you bid fair to straighten out its enemies. Historians, unite. You have nothing to lose but your students.
One quibble: I think “half baked” may be a more apt description of the Claremont theories than “cooked up.” Apologies for the levity about a serious subject, but I don’t see how we can get through this year without a sense of humor.
I found Douthat's reference to John Eastman and the Claremont-types legal chicanery a particularly annoying bait-and-switch.
That was an attempt to pressure courts, Mike Pence, whomever, to reject the election results via "legal" channels. Which is a bit muddy in terms of "insurrection" and invites the sort of "but what about Hillary" turnabout that Douthat is contractually mandated to produce.
But while that effort was simultaneous it was ENTIRELY DISTINCT from the mob which interceded against the constitutional operation of the Electoral College by force.
It's just darkly funny watching the strict textualists squirm where the yellowed parchment has them so dead to rights on a question that not only is politically unacceptable to them but that THEY KNOW THEY WILL WIN REGARDLESS. But that's not good enough, our clever little Fauntleroys have to convince themselves that they are in the right and they aren't just engaged in the vulgar exercise of power.
It wasn't distinct. It was coordinated. Hell, the mob was pressuring Pence from within the building, at Trump's urging.
The roots of Eastman's attempt to lawyer away the law and create his own private Constitution are in the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11. Administration lawyers wrote tortured memos explaining away the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, the Convention Against Torture and derivative federal law, and the Geneva Conventions.
These interpretations had no bases in the plain texts, but they were used to exercise power, just as Eastman's memo could have been used to maintain power.
I also find the point about most of the mob believing they were standing up against voter fraud strange both because it relies on an amorphous and fundamentally unknowable assumption about what a large crowd of individuals believe and because Trump and his guys pushed to create the false narrative that then justified the behavior. It would seem to open the door for any sort of coordinated campaign of 'belief' in the illegitimacy of a politician. As soon as enough people believe the lie it's a justification. Obviously this sort of approach isn't new but Douthat treating it as a legitimate manifestation of popular will is weird.
This historian has long timelines centering on the cancerous anti-constitutional growth of the executive branch. GWBush and John Yoo figure prominently. BTW, tenured Law Professor Yoo, retired from torture memos, has written a big book justifying the legal readings that gave rise to them and the whole unitary executive shebang. Only ambitious law students will read it, and Yoo's disciples will remain.
"It's only an insurrection if someone says that is what they are doing" is a clear corollary to the Roberts Court's argument that something is only racist if the perpetrator announce that they are doing a racism.
Greg Sargent had a tweet thread also calling out Douthat's dishonesty. I don't want to support Elon Musk's $44 billion Nazi Bar, so won't link to it here. You can find it on your own.
The rhetorical tactic Douthat uses is what philosopher Nicholas Shackel has called the equivocating fulcrum. The definition appears in this PDF: https://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf
The equivocation on Douthat's part is to pivot the conversation from the conduct of the Jan. 6 mob and the support it had from the government about to find itself out of power, to a controversy over semantics. There are other names of this fallacy of "pounding the dictionary" as a substitute for argument (Shackel also names them: motte and bailey, Humpty Dumptying, rankly relativizing fields, fox trot), and furthermore by fabricating any confusion or misunderstanding of the meaning of "insurrection," the fulcrum works by creating a false debate around what the thing we all just saw should be called. It's this trickery that allows Douthat and his ilk to engage in self-deception and not be forced to defend the indefensible.
Defending the constitution by vandalizing the legislative buildings, what?
I imagine the Supreme Court decision about ballot exclusions, whatever it ends up being, might sway the conservatives who see themselves as defenders of order. So to be honest, I'm as worried about that as any electoral results. Its a means of fabricating legitimacy that is probably less threatening to them.
Douthat's argument is just plain weird:
"no serious claim of military or political authority made on behalf of the assembled mob".
So, "hang Mike Pence" was just a joke? the gallows were just theatre? The armed insurgents attempting to break down the doors of Congress were just fooling around?
And, if they had found Mike Pence- they wouldn't have forced him against his will, under threat of execution, to reject the legally appointed electors? They wouldn't have forced Congress at gunpoint to vote in favor of their chosen result? And they wouldn't have used the gallows to execute any number of members of Congress they said they wanted to catch?
Seriously?
There were also those military and ex-military folks carrying zip ties and that one group that charged into the Capitol in formation. A military analyst said this is the behavior of military on a capture-and-kill operation.
I have never figured out how Douthat is able to write as prolifically as he does with his head planted so firmly that far up his ass.
Douthat is the master of the red herring.
Agreed, and he makes bank working for the paper of record. I just don't get it. The man is a walking red flag forest full of bad takes.
If you see the New York Times as being the screenwriters' room for a TV series called "Narrative of Record," you'd see the staff columnists as an ensemble cast of quirky high-achiever characters whose idiosyncrasies are represented by their prose.
Theoretically, each is supposed to represent a microcosm of America, or the ideological and demographic diversity of American elites. And of course, try to maintain a 50% Democratic/Republican balance.
Good analysis!
"The question now is whether conservative elites will decide that someone like Trump and his most radical followers provide the better alternative—the less “disorderly” path—and they therefore decide to endorse another illegal gambit for power like January 6."
I think there is little question that the conservatives elites have already made that decision. Why else is Elise Stefanik speaking of the J9 "hostages"? Why else has the Heritage Foundation mobilized to provide the advance planning that Trump's "Thug Tank" guys (Bannon, Stone, et al) don't have the discipline to achieve?
Yes, there are some donors who much prefer to see DeSantis or Haley in the White House. But one wonders why they imagine that Trump would accept a primary loss from them anymore than he would accept a loss to Biden. The public "disorder" would just start sooner––a J9 style disruption of the Republican convention, for instance.
As soon as I read this:
> What transforms a political event from a violent riot or lawless mob (which Jan. 6 plainly was) to a genuinely insurrectionary event is the outright denial of the authority of the existing political order and the attempt to establish some alternative order in its place.
I said to myself "this is a 'wE'rE a RePuBLiC nOt A dEmOcRaCy' " guy, and, of course, he is:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/opinion/liberals-conservatives-democracy.html
From then on, it is useless to point out the obvious flaws in his arguments, since he basically will never see an attack on democratic institutions as an act of insurrection. Jan 6 to him is not an insurrection because he is 100% fine with not having a democracy as long as his guys is in power.
Ed Burmila wrote the definitive takedown of "wE'rE a RePuBLiC nOt A dEmOcRaCy" in The Baffler.
https://thebaffler.com/latest/were-a-republic-not-a-democracy-burmila
Burmila: "Those six simple words fill the very different needs of several key demographics in the ascendant right.
For glib elitist types who openly believe in their own superiority, it is a straightforward endorsement of paternalistic, Burkean, “your interests, not your will” representation. To Fox News Stepdads who have spent decades venerating the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, it is an appeal to authority—So was it written, by the great Men themselves!—with the condescending tone natural to the mediocre white guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but is certain of its accuracy. And in the most common scenario, it is simply a way to create the appearance of having said something profound while saying nothing at all."
Douthat's argument seems to be that it is not an insurrection if you have some kind of legal argument. The Confederates had a much stronger legal argument than the Trumpazoids--and yet the 14th Amendment was aimed square at them.
Very, very good. You'll never reach the coup's partisans but at least you bid fair to straighten out its enemies. Historians, unite. You have nothing to lose but your students.
One quibble: I think “half baked” may be a more apt description of the Claremont theories than “cooked up.” Apologies for the levity about a serious subject, but I don’t see how we can get through this year without a sense of humor.
Humor is dead. Comedy passed away in the second George W. Bush term.
All great comedians either die young and funny* or live long enough to become Bill Maher.
*-Except George Carlin, of course.
I found Douthat's reference to John Eastman and the Claremont-types legal chicanery a particularly annoying bait-and-switch.
That was an attempt to pressure courts, Mike Pence, whomever, to reject the election results via "legal" channels. Which is a bit muddy in terms of "insurrection" and invites the sort of "but what about Hillary" turnabout that Douthat is contractually mandated to produce.
But while that effort was simultaneous it was ENTIRELY DISTINCT from the mob which interceded against the constitutional operation of the Electoral College by force.
It's just darkly funny watching the strict textualists squirm where the yellowed parchment has them so dead to rights on a question that not only is politically unacceptable to them but that THEY KNOW THEY WILL WIN REGARDLESS. But that's not good enough, our clever little Fauntleroys have to convince themselves that they are in the right and they aren't just engaged in the vulgar exercise of power.
It wasn't distinct. It was coordinated. Hell, the mob was pressuring Pence from within the building, at Trump's urging.
The roots of Eastman's attempt to lawyer away the law and create his own private Constitution are in the Bush administration's reaction to 9/11. Administration lawyers wrote tortured memos explaining away the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, the Convention Against Torture and derivative federal law, and the Geneva Conventions.
These interpretations had no bases in the plain texts, but they were used to exercise power, just as Eastman's memo could have been used to maintain power.
I also find the point about most of the mob believing they were standing up against voter fraud strange both because it relies on an amorphous and fundamentally unknowable assumption about what a large crowd of individuals believe and because Trump and his guys pushed to create the false narrative that then justified the behavior. It would seem to open the door for any sort of coordinated campaign of 'belief' in the illegitimacy of a politician. As soon as enough people believe the lie it's a justification. Obviously this sort of approach isn't new but Douthat treating it as a legitimate manifestation of popular will is weird.
They weren't standing up against voter fraud. They were trying to force reality to be what their foolish hearts desired.
This historian has long timelines centering on the cancerous anti-constitutional growth of the executive branch. GWBush and John Yoo figure prominently. BTW, tenured Law Professor Yoo, retired from torture memos, has written a big book justifying the legal readings that gave rise to them and the whole unitary executive shebang. Only ambitious law students will read it, and Yoo's disciples will remain.
"It's only an insurrection if someone says that is what they are doing" is a clear corollary to the Roberts Court's argument that something is only racist if the perpetrator announce that they are doing a racism.
Greg Sargent had a tweet thread also calling out Douthat's dishonesty. I don't want to support Elon Musk's $44 billion Nazi Bar, so won't link to it here. You can find it on your own.
The rhetorical tactic Douthat uses is what philosopher Nicholas Shackel has called the equivocating fulcrum. The definition appears in this PDF: https://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf
The equivocation on Douthat's part is to pivot the conversation from the conduct of the Jan. 6 mob and the support it had from the government about to find itself out of power, to a controversy over semantics. There are other names of this fallacy of "pounding the dictionary" as a substitute for argument (Shackel also names them: motte and bailey, Humpty Dumptying, rankly relativizing fields, fox trot), and furthermore by fabricating any confusion or misunderstanding of the meaning of "insurrection," the fulcrum works by creating a false debate around what the thing we all just saw should be called. It's this trickery that allows Douthat and his ilk to engage in self-deception and not be forced to defend the indefensible.
"Coup, Putsch, or Insurrection?" is the 21st century's version of the game "F, M, K" that we didn't need but we deserve.
Defending the constitution by vandalizing the legislative buildings, what?
I imagine the Supreme Court decision about ballot exclusions, whatever it ends up being, might sway the conservatives who see themselves as defenders of order. So to be honest, I'm as worried about that as any electoral results. Its a means of fabricating legitimacy that is probably less threatening to them.