Will the United States Survive this election (continued) America on the brink of civil war?

I joined my two University of Texas colleagues Jeff Tulis and Jeremy Suri in writing an op-ed, published in today's New York Daily News.  As you can see (if you open it), it calls for a coalition of Democratic and at least 37 Republican electors to ally to vote for a Republican other than Donald Trump and thus throw the election into the House, which would presumably elect the alternative Republican and save us from the Trumpian menace, the character of which seems clearer day by day.  Even though he cannot be assigned direct responsibility, I note the following postcard that I received today at my Harvard Law School office, mailed, it seems, from the UK.  It reads, in toto:  "Hey Sandy   You just got your kike ass kicked.  fuck you hymie.  We're gonna Drain the Swamp at Harvard Law.  Juden Raus!"  There can be no doubt that Trump and Bannon have liberated the worst instincts of a lot of truly deplorable people.  The most unequivocally happy supporter of the new Trump regime is David Duke, which makes a lot of sense.  This is precisely why it is important for conservatives of good will to come together, at long last, for a true "never Trump" movement that would act completely constitutionally by imploring electors to accept the responsibilities actually envisioned for them by the Philadelphia Framers.  One such honorable conservative is Michael Stokes Paulsen, who has a valuable analysis of the electoral college and the constitutionally-guaranteed autonomy of electors.  There is also a group calling themselves the "Hamilton Electors," who emphasize the disconnect between the arguments made by Publius/Hamilton re the electoral college and the view that the electors are totally without the ability to engage in what Publius in Federalist 1 called "reflection and choice" about the character and capabilities of candidates to occupy what we call the White House (built, of course, after Philadelphia).  If we're going to have a constitutional crisis, which is quite likely, better it be to prevent the sociopath from taking office than trying to figure out how to respond after he begins exercising all of the formidable powers of the modern presidency.


I continue to think that we are in the most serious existential internal crisis since 1860, for reasons I have elaborated at length earlier.  Consider, though, one response that I received shortly after the publication of the Daily News piece:  "They can try and steal it from President Elect Trump, but if they do get ready for Martial Law under Obama because there are 70 million of us and we'll make the radical left wing riots currently underway look like a picnic. The Establishment lost this one, deal with it."  I have no doubt that the author is fundamentally correct that martial law might have to be declared to deal not with 70 million people, which is simply foolish given the voting totals, but with a large enough number, with guns, who will threaten significant civic disorder.  Is that a good enough reason to roll over and accept the verdict of the minority of the American voters who voted for the sociopath?  It all depends on how dangerous one believes that Trump and his minions are, and I believe they are dangerous indeed.

How, if he becomes president, might the civil war begin, since there will certainly be no Fort Sumter to signal the beginning, and the California vote for secession apparently won't take place until 2019.  I think the most likely beginning would be reminiscent of the violence in the streets of Boston over the rendition of fugitive slaves like Anthony Burns.  [It should be clear, incidentally, that Burns violated the law by fleeing his confinement as a slave, and the august Supreme Court, in the worst single decision in our history, worse even than Dred Scott, upheld the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, and Abraham Lincoln himself, the Great Emancipator, declared that Republicans had a duty to support the Fugitive Slave Law as part of the deal that had been made with the slaveowners in order to get the Constitution in the first place.]  That is, if peaceful families of undocumented aliens start being rounded up and sent to concentration camps prior to their deportation, it becomes the duty of all of us to stand in solidarity with them and prevent the legal authorities from being able to carry out their "duties" without becoming aware of the absolute contempt in which they are held.  (Obviously, there will also be many people cheering them on.)   Consider the following comment by someone we know in Texas:

I think "panic" is an accurate term. I don't think my parents have realized the extent of what people have done. I have friends who are still spontaneously crying over the election — it's pretty horrific.

This will definitely impact my family in many ways and the most immediate impact will likely be the repeal of DACA, which Trump has promised to eliminate on his first day in office. Without DACA, I would not have any sort of valid government-issued ID that would enable me to drive, fly or legally work. My work permit will be taken away. I will have no source of income. I will not be able to pay rent. I would not be able to enroll in law school, as planned. My driver's license will be taken away, meaning I would be trapped in DC and unable to fly to Texas to visit my parents.

Things are not looking good.

.... [A]fter 20 years in the U.S., a Trump victory feels like the ultimate betrayal — it's a slap in the face to know that 60 million people, including many people I grew up with me, looked at my family's suffering and literally said that they don't care.

No doubt some readers of these remarks will say that they have no complaint if they're sent to concentration camps, since, after all, they are, at least technically speaking, in violation of the law.  I see this simply as evidence of the chasm that increasingly divides us.  I might think differently if the sociopath were doing anything at all to calm the waters.  But the appointment of Steve Bannon as his primary advisor, of the racist Jeff Sessions as A.G., and a probable appointment to the Kris Kobach (Yale Law School graduate though he may be), who is adamant to the point of obsession with regard to his opposition to undocumented aliens and his suspicions of voter fraud, does nothing whatsoever to quiet any concern.  Mike Pence was a class act at Hamilton, apparently telling his daughter that "this is what freedom sounds like."  I think that the sociopathic would-be president-elect is incapable of anything resembling a class act defined in terms other than sheer vulgar display.  As David Frum has apparently suggested, one reason he settled the suit against his fraudulent "Trump University" for $25 million is his belief that he can make at least a billion dollars cashing in on business deals, especially with foreigners, while in the White House.

There are many honorable Republicans.  Our task is to coalesce and save the country from a true threat.  Nothing that Al Qaeda could do so threatens the American fabric as does Donald Trump and the truly deplorable part of his base (which may represent only a relatively small subset of the larger number of people who voted for him in their understandable desire to say "fuck you" to elites of both parties that had almost willfully ignored their plight in the rush toward globalization).  No doubt many of those who voted for the Nazis in 1933 also had "understandable reasons" to do so.  It really didn't matter once they seized power through legal means.