Time to Step Up – Walter S.Topp

Dear Senator Portman,

As you know, on January 13, the federal government issued an intelligence bulletin warning of a likely increase in political violence motivated largely by the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

This lie follows years of similar lies by Trump regarding various contests, including the 2012 election of Barack Obama, the 2016 Republican primaries, Emmy award selections, and the number of times Melania Trump appeared on the cover of fashion magazines. In 2016 and again in 2020, before the presidential elections, he declared that if he lost either of those contests, it could only be because the election was “rigged” against him.

While many Democrats and media outlets pushed back against these dangerous falsehoods, virtually no Republicans did. As result, the lies gained traction as any argument could easily be dismissed as partisan hackery or Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Having accepted such blatantly undemocratic and ill-conceived behavior for years, Republicans were content to allow the lies to continue during the months after the 2020 election, despite the fact that neither state election officials nor Trump campaign lawyers could find any evidence that the 2020 election was in any way compromised. At least one Republican official told reporters that there was “no harm” in letting Trump vent his frustration by attacking our democracy itself.

On January 6, we saw the harm.

Now, as armed right wing “militias,” extremists, and many thousands of Trump supporters make plans to disrupt the upcoming inauguration and other lawful government activity in Washington DC and in elsewhere, the US intelligence community is warning that the lie about the election will likely spark violence for many months to come.

We are on the very edge of the precipice.

For five Americans – including a Capitol Police Officer – it is too late now to step back. But we must find a way get off this path before we tumble into the abyss.

Once it begins, political violence is extraordinary difficult to stop. Intelligence analysts already believe that political violence through 2021 is all but certain.

“It really only takes a spark to set off a significant amount of violence and once you have that violence, it becomes self-sustaining,” said David Kilcullen, the former counter-insurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and the author of five books on counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism.

“The only way you can avoid violence … is if the political leadership of both parties moves to de-escalate things and demobilize their bases,” said Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky.

But Trump and a coterie of cynical and opportunistic Republican leaders are doing the opposite. Just hours after the Capitol was cleared of occupiers, 147 Republican lawmakers voted to reject electoral votes for Joseph Biden that had been legally certified by the states, effectively endorsing the actions of the mob that fought police, broke into the Capitol, and killed a police officer.

If we are to save ourselves from a prolonged and terrible period of political violence, we must act now. We need leaders – Republican officials, in particular – to step up and forcefully reject the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

No one else can do this. The protestations by Democrats, political independents, media commentators, state election officials, and others have all been dismissed by the majority of Republicans who remain convinced – despite the total lack of evidence – that the election was stolen from them.

A handful of prominent Republicans, including Trump’s own attorney general and the Undersecretary of Homeland Security, have already said that the election was not stolen. But far too many Republican officials are remaining silent, content to let the clock run out on the disastrous Trump presidency while mouthing insincere calls for unity.

But while Trump’s presidency will end, his deceitful, dangerous, and unhinged ravings about a stolen election will not. There will be no healing while he continues to tear at the wounds he has inflicted.

Somehow, we must convince millions of Trump supporters of the truth that the 2020 election was free and fair. Many are impervious to reason and will remain locked in their dysfunctional belief system. The small cadre of extremists will continue to agitate for violence. But, hopefully, others – perhaps millions of others – may be persuaded that our elections are fundamentally fair and that violence to overthrow election results is wrong.

Franklin Roosevelt said that “the greatest duty of a statesman is to educate.” Too many Republicans today are committed to following their most fervent voters, even though they know that those they trail are misguided. Even worse, far too many Republicans are content to encourage their deluded base in the hopes of reaping some future political benefit.

As a United States Senator, it is not too late for you to honor your oath of office and take a leadership role in defending our nation’s democratic processes. We need you to state unequivocally that the election was not stolen and we need you to encourage other Republican officials to do the same.

We are far past the point where this fever will burn itself out.

If you have a better idea for quenching these smoldering embers, please take the necessary steps. But inaction is not an option.

Thank you for your attention.

January 15, 2021