JANUARY 6, 2021

Bert Wolfe

taSpom
 

Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it.

President Abraham Lincoln, Letter to AG Hodges, April 4, 1864

There is much controversy presently over the censoring of President Donald Trump on various social media outlets. What is beyond dispute is that at a rally on January 6, 2021 Donald Trump incited the riot that subsequently occurred on Capitol Hill while the Congress was fulfilling its constitutional duty to count and certify the Electoral College votes for the new presidential administration that will begin on January 20, 2021. The riot and the bloodshed and mayhem associated with it temporarily disrupted the counting and certification of the Electoral College votes. Congress, to its credit, came back and completed its constitutional duty, finished counting the electoral votes and certified Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the incoming President-elect and Vice President-elect, respectively.

President Abraham Lincoln was highly criticized for occasionally acting in a blatantly unconstitutional manner at various times during the American Civil War. As an attorney, President Lincoln revered the US Constitution, but he revered the continued survival of the Union even more. As President Lincoln explained in his letter to AG Hodges, ensuring the survival of the nation in the midst of the greatest crisis America ever faced required occasionally violating the letter of the US Constitution. By doing so, President Lincoln observed the larger spirit and intention of the US Constitution: to promote the survival and thriving of the United States of America as a successful, going nation-state.

President Trump, on January 6, 2021, clearly violated his oath of office to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States, and by so doing, put the preservation of the the rule of law and the Constitution under grave threat from an angry, riotous mob he deliberately incited and sent to Capitol Hill to assault the Congress in the performance of its constitutional duty.

At this point in time, President Trump clearly needed to have his access to social media restricted in order to help preserve the rule of law and ensure a smooth, seamless transition of power on January 20, 2021. While seemingly a violation of Trump’s First Amendment rights under the US Constitution, as President Lincoln so wisely observed during the Civil War, it is occasionally necessary to sacrifice a limb in order to save the body. No one sacrifices the body to save a limb.

 Rebecca Solnit wrote:

“The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists. The reasonable position is not a compromise between rapists and feminists, slaveowners and abolitionists, Natives and General Crook. The truth is not midway between the liar and the truthteller. That has to be a factor in all those calls for reaching out and unity. The murderer and his intended victim don’t have to agree on what’s right. The people who were harmed don’t have to reach out to those who did the harming. The people who told the truth don’t need to make liars feel better about themselves or what they said. Those who were targeted by this war don’t have to do all the peacemaking. If reaching out and finding unity is good, the haters and liars can go find some olive branches and apologies and do the work to leave their will to destroy the rest of us behind. Then it begins. The party of hate never had a mandate; they lost the popular vote last time and this time; they may think of themselves as the real American and the gatekeepers but we don’t have to, and we don’t have to enter their gates or play by their rules. We don’t have to hate them either, but we don’t have to protect them from the consequences of their choices or sell out our principles for their comfort. When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.”

Well funded and organized effort since 1950s by corporate oligarchs (ALEC, Koch) in coalition with racists (see Brown vs Board of Education 1955) and religious zealots, to demonize and cripple democratic government so they can avoid regulation which protects us from them, buy and control government, evade taxation, take all the money, hijack our military and do whatever they want (see: Feudalism, Fascism).