Very few people at the Texas Tribune Festival got a standing ovation when they walked in for their talk. One of these was J. Michael Luttig, former U.S. circuit judge on the Court of Appeals, whose legal arguments against the former president (DT) have made him one of the most well-known and respected jurists in the country. He told the audience in Austin what a critical time we are in right now.
“The founders of our nation and the framers of our Constitution feared most of all this very moment in American history – when the American people would be tempted by the seductive demagoguery of a modern-day populist demagogue. In a letter to George Washington in 1792, Alexander Hamilton warned of this day and this demagogue, who would ‘Mount the hobby-horse of popularity and whose objective may justly be suspected to throw things into confusion that he might ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
Thomas Jefferson, Luttig said, agreed with Hamilton very little, but he too wrote about the existential danger of a popular demagogue. Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1787: “If once elected in a second or third election, outvoted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, and hold possession of the reins of government, supported by the states who voted for him.”
Ringing the alarm bells for the very existence of democracy, Luttig warned the audience that “The founding fathers feared this moment, and this man, more than anything else at the time they founded this nation and wrote our Constitution. The Constitution of the United States itself, as the charter of our nation, is not vulnerable at all: it was written to endure for all eternity. But no constitution can protect us, the people, from those public officials who occupy the highest positions of our government.”
Luttig put the situation in stark terms. “Has our Constitution prevailed today, under the circumstances beginning on Jan. 6, 2021? The Constitution has, yes. But those charged with enforcing the Constitution, for the most part, have failed us.”
[Note: per editorial policy, this newspaper does not print the name for the former president, only his initials. The same policy applies to every convicted felon.]
Photo by C. Cunningham