Every once in a while something happens that brings everything into perspective. For me, it was Newt Gingrich’s recent interview on Fox News in which he said that if Republicans win a majority in Congress in the next election, the people who have participated in the January 6th investigation will go to jail. We have arrived at a place I never thought was possible for the United States of America: We are becoming what we used to call in a disparaging way a banana republic.
And it is not just Newt; the mainstream Republican Party feels the same way. The Gingrich interview followed the announcement that Glenn Youngkin, the new governor of Virginia, just fired Timothy Heaphy, the University of Virginia counsel, who is currently on leave to be the chief investigative counsel for the January 6th investigation. And in a recent Defeat the Mandates rally in Washington, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reports one of the speakers said, “Mark my words: We will hold Tony Fauci accountable, we will hold Deborah Birx accountable, we will hold Joe Biden accountable, but unlike the Nuremberg trials…we are going to come after the press.” And all of this is just an extension of Trump’s “lock them up” rallies during the 2020 campaign, where he called for Biden to be jailed for the crime of campaigning against him. So here we are.
Americans, who characteristically look down on their neighbors, used the term “banana republic” to describe countries in Central America as not just economically and politically unstable but as characterized by a politics of lawless revenge, where new governments coming in would arrest those from the previous governments for just doing their jobs and even go after the press. We saw ourselves as superior to our neighbors in every way. But now Newt Gingrich and others have made clear that while the movement toward autocracy had already begun here, it has now reached the point where it is proclaimed without equivocation or apology. We are now becoming that which we once scorned. And the irony of it all seems lost on almost everyone.
Congress is absolutely honor-bound to investigate an attack on the U.S. Capitol. There was an effort by a crowd to interrupt the counting of the electoral votes for the presidency. This was an insurrection, pure and simple. Technically, it was not a coup, because the armed services were not involved. But that could be ahead of us. And during the attack, several people were targeted for death, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the vice president of the United States. It would be irresponsible for Congress to not investigate. Surely the individuals responsible should be held accountable. This includes an inquiry into those who propagated the lie that the election had been stolen, and those who were involved in sending false “alternative” electoral votes to Congress, as well as the involvement of the former president, Donald Trump, and other political leaders who encouraged the angry crowd on January 6th. This investigation is responsible government. Nothing more.
The call to jail the investigators is frightening enough for the investigators themselves. But there is more to it. The real goal is to intimidate others. This is how democracy dies. Intimidation. Crowds in the street. Extra-legal militias, carrying weapons and shouting. And little by little, violence increases until it becomes accepted. There are decent people in this country, but one by one they are being silenced. Fear has a way of doing that. And if the intimidation succeeds, an insurrection won’t be needed next time.
I have always loved my country, and I devoted most of my life to teaching college students about it. So it hurts me to see what is happening today. I worry that my wife and I will not be able to live out our retirement in peace. I fear for my daughters and my grandchildren. What will happen to them?
What can we do to prevent what seems like an inevitable slide toward disaster? What can we do to prevent the United States from becoming that banana republic? The answer is simple: decent people must speak up, in spite of their fear. What does this mean? We have to read newspapers (and more than one) and watch the news. We have to disagree with friends and neighbors when they say something dangerous, even if it means that we lose a friend or create some tension in the neighborhood. We have to go to school board meetings. We have to write our representatives. And when election day arrives, we absolutely must vote. Even all of this may not be enough, but the consequences of not trying are too terrible to contemplate.
We cannot remain silent, go about our daily lives, and hope that things will get better on their own. But time is short, and the enemies of democracy are pursuing their goals with passionate intensity.
