By Peter Berger
By Peter Berger
I don’t know what put the expression “malice aforethought” in Mrs. Evans’s mind or why she chose to introduce it to our second-grade class. It’s a term that dates from medieval English law. Murder with malice aforethought meant a murder that had been premeditated.
As far as my 7-year-old mind could discern, Mrs. Evans applied it to any misbehavior, including classroom misconduct, where the evil deed had been planned ahead of time.
I learned about madness from my grandmother. Whenever I told her I was mad about something, she’d remind me, “People become angry, Peter. Animals are mad.” I took it to mean that anger was controlled and had a reason, while madness was wild and crazy.
Welcome to contemporary American politics, where malice and madness have infected the Republican Party and through it, the nation.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not a Democrat, though I did send them 25 bucks early last fall. If I have Democratic leanings at present, they’ve been imposed on me by Republican politicians’ general failure to locate their spines.
Democrats certainly aren’t without fault. They aren’t above partisan posturing; like most of us, they shade the truth, some are doubtless corrupt, and I don’t agree with all their ideas. The difference is, Republicans are the only ones currently supporting a party leader who tried, and is still trying, to overthrow the United States government.
Liz Cheney is an exception to what is increasingly the GOP rule. Her stance on issues reflects the virtues and vices of conservative orthodoxy, and as third-ranking Republican congressional leader, she generally endorsed Trump administration policies. Beginning last November, however, she publicly called on Trump to respect the “sanctity of our electoral process” and either prove his “claims of criminality and widespread fraud” or concede defeat.
Cheney opposed Trump’s campaign to overturn the Electoral College results. After Jan. 6, she was one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the insurrection. She accused Trump of provoking “a violent attack” on the Capitol “in an effort to steal the election” even as he simultaneously lied “to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him.” She warned her colleagues against joining Trump’s “crusade to undermine our democracy” and equated his, and their, refusal to “accept the rulings of our courts” with being “at war with the Constitution.”
Republicans removed Cheney from her leadership position last week. After she was purged, she again condemned Trump’s “lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution,” as well as his “very dangerous lies.” She pledged to oppose any effort he might make to regain the Oval Office.
In the wake of the insurrection, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy charged “the president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” His initial resolve lasted until he had his mind, or at least his mouth, changed at Mar-a-Lago.
He justified Cheney’s removal for saying what he’d once said on the grounds that Republicans “can’t afford to be distracted” from their “important work” and “shared goals.” That work and those goals apparently don’t include preventing another Trump-incited coup attempt.
He also assured reporters that nobody is still “questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election,” an assessment that definitely doesn’t account for the 45th president or the 70% of Republicans who believe his “stolen election” lie.
Trump celebrated the Kentucky Derby by comparing it to “our fake presidential election.” Along with his usual misstatements of fact and law, excessive use of capital letters, and ravings about “Fake News” and “the greatest fraud in the history of our country,” he announced that the Arizona auditing farce has uncovered “unbelievable election crime.” There’s also a “bombshell” Michigan claim that a “MASSIVE and determinative” number of votes “were intentionally switched from President Trump to Joe Biden.” He anticipates making the same false allegation “in numerous other states.”
Trump concludes by comparing the 2020 election to diamonds stolen from a jewelry store. He calls on Republicans to “UNIFY” and make sure the diamonds are “returned” to their rightful owner.
Anybody contending that this doesn’t constitute calling for a coup and that he isn’t inciting the seditious overthrow and removal of a lawfully elected president, needs to grapple with what his words plainly mean.
Of course, some Trump loyalists already contend the first insurrection didn’t happen. In addition to endorsing the Trump lies that caused it, they’re now promoting the lie that “there was no insurrection,” that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a gathering of “peaceful patriots” and “law-abiding” Americans who are now being persecuted by the “national security state.”
According to Trumpists, any claim of an insurrection is a “bold-faced lie.” The rioter who was shot as she breached the battered door that led to the House chamber and Nancy Pelosi’s office was allegedly “executed” by Capitol police. One Republican congressman likens the attack that injured 140 officers and cost five lives to a “normal tourist visit.”
The problem with their Trumpian version of events is, we watched what happened as it happened. We’ve seen the police surveillance recordings and the smartphone videos the rioters posted on Facebook. We heard them chant “Hang Mike Pence” and “Where’s Nancy?” We saw the shattered windows and the battered doors. We saw the gallows and wrist cuffs, and senators hunted in hallways and congressmen sheltering under chairs in the House chamber.
If the rioter who was shot in the threshold to that chamber was victimized by anything beyond her own bad judgment, she was a victim of Donald Trump’s damnable lies. Anyone who remains silent or repeats those lies is complicit in her death and the deaths to come.
As for the “normal tourist visit” lie, I doubt many Republicans will choose to bring their children and grandchildren to wander the halls of Congress at the next insurrection.
We stand with our backs to history’s abyss.
We’ve been deceived by intentional malice.
We’ve been beguiled by madness.
Either is enough to kill a republic.
And we battle both.
Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.
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