Can Our Democracy Survive Overturning Roe v Wade?

On December 1, 2021, the Supreme Court met to consider the constitutionality of a Mississippi law prohibiting abortion after fifteen weeks gestation.  Most commentators have agreed that the six-person conservative majority will likely take the opportunity to significantly limit — or even overturn — the Court’s defining 1973 decision on abortion, Roe v Wade.  The decision is expected by summer.

At its simplest, there are two essential elements to Roe v Wade. 

• First, it affirms a woman has a constitutional right to abortion prior to fetal viability, or about twenty-four weeks gestation.  
• Second, during the middle trimester (12 to 24 weeks), a state may regulate abortion in the interests of maternal health (eg, mandating that it be performed in a hospital) but not ban it.

The Supreme Court could use the Mississippi case to overturn Roe v Wade totally, returning to the states the power to regulate or ban abortion completely.  More probably, it will take an incrementalist approach and simply affirm the constitutionality of Mississippi's prohibition of abortions after fifteen weeks.  Although the precise wording the Court would use is unclear, the result would probably be to remove the “pre-fetal viability” criterion for legal abortion.  Either decision would almost certainly lead to a legislative free-for-all as anti-abortion statehouses write new laws to restrict abortion further or outlaw it altogether.  

The potential for political chaos after either of these decisions is high.  The Guttmacher Institute reports that 

If Roe were overturned or fundamentally weakened, 21 states have laws or constitutional amendments already in place that would make them certain to attempt to ban abortion as quickly as possible. …
An additional five states have political composition, history and other indicators — such as recent actions to limit access to abortion — that show they are likely to ban abortion as soon as possible without federal protections in place.

The conservative (but not right-wing) columnist David Brooks writes:

I used to support overturning Roe because I thought it would be healthy to get the abortion issue out of the courts and back to state legislatures.  I used to think that most states would wind up where the nation’s center of gravity is — with restrictions but not bans.
But we’re now trying to deal with a miserably complex issue in a brutalized political culture.  Majorities don’t rule in this country; polarized minorities do.  The evidence this week is that the post-Roe politics would make even our current politics seem tame.  I’m not sure our democracy is strong enough for that.

Where is the nation's “center of gravity” on abortion?  In fact, there is no simple answer to that question.  The debate that has raged for five decades without much change in American public opinion has focused on the extremes: at one end, abortion is “murder;” at the other it’s “just another medical procedure.”  That simplistic argument is not only irresolvable; it permits us to sidestep our intricate, highly nuanced and often painfully contradictory views.  A National Public Radio (NPR) - Marist 2019 poll on abortion — two years old but much more thorough than most — came to the conclusion that there is

a great deal of complexity — and sometimes contradiction among Americans — that goes well beyond the talking points of the loudest voices in the debate.  In fact, there's a high level of dissatisfaction with abortion policy overall.  Almost two-thirds of people said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied, including 66% of those who self-identify as "pro-life" and 62% of those who self-identify as "pro-choice."
What it speaks to is the fact that the debate is dominated by the extreme positions on both sides," said Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll, which conducted the survey.  "People do see the issue as very complicated, very complex.  Their positions don't fall along one side or the other.  ...  The debate is about the extremes, and that's not where the public is."

Few of us take an absolutist stance.  Only a small fraction of us (13%) believe that abortion should be illegal under all circumstances.  A somewhat larger fraction (25%) believe that it should be legal under all circumstances.  Most of us, then, believe that abortion should be legal with some restrictions.  

Over 90% of abortions in the United States take place during the first trimester when most of us think they should be legal.  Furthermore over 40% of all abortions are medically induced.  (Interestingly, I’ve been unable to find a poll measuring our attitudes toward medically induced abortion.  I suspect we feel differently about it than about surgically induced abortion.)

Surprisingly, the vast majority (86% of those who expressed an opinion in this poll) were against overturning Roe completely (including 59% of Republicans), although roughly equal numbers wanted to add restrictions, reduce restrictions or leave the ruling the same.  Opinions about Roe v Wade have not changed dramatically since it was decided.

America's current debate over abortion has been along the ideological edges and does not reflect how the majority of us approach this difficult issue.  In fact, the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision allowing abortion with certain restrictions captured remarkable well — and continues to reflect — the American public’s complex attitudes towards the procedure.  

One way of looking at Roe v Wade is as a safe space within our polarized country that makes possible debate over the impassioned and ultimately irresolvable conflict that surrounds abortion.  Within that space we can argue vehemently, groups can organize politically, conservative state lawmakers can tweak their laws, yet the basic provisions of abortion law conform to majority public opinion.

If Roe is overturned or dramatically limited, however, polarized minorities in certain states will make abortion illegal.  (Even in the states most likely to restrict or prohibit abortion, approximately 40% of the population believes that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.)  In some cases, abortion providers will try to continue to make them safely available illegally, anyway.  What will be the legal consequence?  Will we put the doctors in jail?  Over 70% of Americans oppose fines or criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions.  Are we ready for vigilante justice?  In other cases, women will seek unsafe abortions, with predictable awful medical consequences.  

Without Roe’s restrictions (and in the presence of our highly polarized, sometimes violent abortion-debate milieu), I wonder with David Brooks whether we are morally capable of having a nonviolent — to say nothing of respectful, or even democratic — national discussion.

Really?? Bounties on Teachers

Since the beginning of 2021, legislatures in twenty-four states have introduced fifty-four separate bills aimed at banning the teaching of “prohibited” or “divisive” concepts, mostly relating to race and gender in American history.  Eleven of those bills have passed and twenty-four are still pending.

The impetus behind these laws dates to … September [2020], when President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order banning federal agencies and contractors from conducting diversity trainings that draw on “race or sex scapegoating” or promote “divisive concepts,” such as the claim that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist.” [The New York Times]

The New Hampshire legislature has taken the craziness several steps further.  It began with a bill forbidding the teaching of “divisive concepts” related to race and gender; the provisions of the bill were then folded into the state budget.  As in other such state laws, the language is extraordinarily vague:

One of the central problems with this bill is its ambiguity in what constitutes a banned so-called “divisive’ concept.” … One part of the bill aims to permit “workplace sensitivity training” while other portions of the bill ban speech aimed at addressing “unconscious racism” in the workplace. Similarly, one part of the bill purports to protect academic freedom while another portion bans the teaching on so-called divisive concepts. Frankly, the bill is indecipherable and internally contradictory.

Nevertheless, the legislature then doubled down, adding that teachers who violate the law can be brought before state authorities and lose their license if they are found to have discriminated against an individual or identified group.

The state went further to develop a website through which students and parents can turn in teachers they believe have broken the law.  Finally, the New Hampshire chapter of the right-wing Mom’s for Liberty went one logical step further to offer a $500 bounty**

for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law. Students, parents, teachers, school staff... We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want.

In a country as large as ours, there are bizarre things happening all the time, so it’s sometimes difficult to know how much meaning to ascribe to reports of local events: Does a bizarre and troubling attack on our democracy occurring in New Hampshire portend major trauma to the country, or is it simply a few radicalized right-wingers making noise?

I’m not sure, but I take it seriously.  There are reports from many parts of the country.

Reflecting on Montana’s new law banning classroom discussion of racism and sexism, Attorney General Austin Knudsen said that asking students to reflect on their racial identities and privilege is an example of the prohibited “race-based discrimination” that parents or students can file complaints about.  He also condemned anti-racism training as “discriminatory.”

School boards across the country, too, are being harangued and threatened.  According to the New York Times,

In recent months, there have been Nazi salutes at school board meetings and emails threatening rape. Obscenities have been hurled — or burned into people’s lawns with weed spray.

In Corvallis, Oregon, school board chairman Sami Al-Abdrabbuh has received death threats after public meetings concerning mask mandates and teaching about race.

In California, according to the Times,

school board members have received so many threats that Vernon M. Billy, the executive director of the state School Boards Association, wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking for help. Near Sacramento, he wrote, one entire school board had to flee its chamber after protesters accosted the members.

The Department of Justice has responded to a “disturbing spike” in harassment by directing the FBI to meet with local school boards to coordinate responses to threats that are “not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values.”

When students can claim $500 bounty for turning in teachers for violating a vaguely defined law against “divisive speech,” when parents can threaten teachers with the possibility of legal action or job termination because their child feels “discomfort, guilt, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex,” or when school board members can be threatened with bodily harm for supporting a curriculum focused on racial inequality, then we must recognize a powerful threat to democracy is building within the country.

____________________

** The term “bounty” is not hyperbole; in response to a question about how to contribute, Moms for Liberty NH suggested to PayPal them and mark “CRT Bounty” in the notes.

A Primer on Homelessness

Hard as it might be to believe, homelessness has not always been with us.  Until the 1950s and 60s, most people with severe mental illness were warehoused in mental hospitals.  Until 1980s, many low-income people received some form of government assistance to maintain their housing, although the major federal housing subsidy has always been for the middle class and the wealthy in the form of the mortgage interest tax deduction.  Personally, I don’t recall seeing homeless people on the streets until the late 1980s when pictures of them sleeping on the grates in downtown Washington began appearing in the Washington Post.  Now, of course, you can’t walk very far in an urban area without finding people with no or inadequate housing.

We’re all used to it now.  Homelessness has become normalized.

This is a brief history of the beginning.

Deinstitutionalization

The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill from American mental hospitals took place primarily in the late 1950s and 1960s.  Publicity about conditions inside the hospitals —overcrowding, understaffing and a primitive understanding of the needs of mentally ill patients — along with the overuse of antipsychotic medications such as Thorazine — had aroused the public to the need for change.  The high public expense of institutional care added to the perfect storm of political pressure to empty the hospitals.  

Many who participated in the process later expressed regret about their role.  Scattered programs across the country, however, had demonstrated that comprehensive outpatient care could allow persons with mental illness to be adequately cared for in the community.  The wholesale deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill seems to have been a sincere attempt to provide better care.  The problem was its implementation.

Discharge of patients from the mental hospitals happened quickly over those two decades; building a system of adequate outpatient care did not.  Needed funding for out-patient institutional infrastructure never materialized.  State and local governments did not provide adequate housing with proper medical and social supervision.  When out-patients had set-backs, there were no community structures for temporary in-patient care.  There weren’t enough social workers to smooth the integration into normal society.  Those who’d been institutionalized were on their own in an often-hostile society.

As a result, between the mid-1950s and late 1960s, approximately 90 percent of persons in long-term state psychiatric institutions, that is, hundreds of thousands of patients, were discharged into the community.  Where did they end up?  On the streets and in the jails.  As a result, there are currently three times as many seriously mentally ill patients in jails and prisons as in hospitals.

Defunding federal support for low-income housing

Although up to 30% of currently homeless people may suffer from serious mental illness, the majority do not.  The second major wave of homelessness began in the 1980s as the Ronald Reagan Administration drastically cut funding support for low-income housing:  

[T]he federal commitment to new units of low-income housing went from 347,600 in 1979 to 2,630 in 1983.  These cuts followed big [housing] losses in the private market, as developers replaced inexpensive single-room occupancy housing with luxury and commercial properties.  Nationally, a million units were destroyed in the 1970s alone.  [from The Hill] 

Since the federal government stopped building new public housing, the Housing Choice Voucher program (“Section 8” housing) has become the nation's largest rental assistance program, helping 2.2 million low-income households, including about 1 million families with children, rent modest units of their choice in the private market.  Renters usually pay about one third of their income while the program pays the rest.  Finding landlords of acceptable housing who are willing to accept the poor into their units (even with government payment guaranteed), however, is not always easy or even possible.  Long waiting lists (of up to ten years for larger families) are common … if the lists are even open for more names.

Although homelessness today is ascribed to many complicated, often insoluble causes, the underlying problem is simple: housing for low-income people is just not available.  

Housing Undersupply in High-Cost Markets

The US is in the midst of a long-standing housing shortage.  There are about five million too few housing units compared with households that would like to buy homes.  Especially in high-cost cities, like Washington, DC, the population has continued to grow while the complexity and cost of constructing new housing means housing supply hasn’t kept pace.  As a result, housing prices have climbed significantly faster than people’s income.  In some markets, even modest or low-quality housing is snapped up by middle-class wage earners, leaving people with very low incomes little to no housing they could afford.  

Further, even so-called “affordable housing” is not really meant for poor people.  In DC, for instance, a family of four earning less than $64,000 per year is too poor to be able to afford housing built through the most common federal affordable housing program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.  

It's not complicated.  Low-income people simply cannot afford adequate housing.  As the wealth gap widens, only government action – including providing subsidies and encouraging more housing supply - can meet the problem.  Without significant government assistance, the only choices poor people have are overcrowding, substandard housing or homelessness.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Since the 2020 elections, the Republican Party has revealed the depth of its anti-democratic nature by refusing to accept three essential principles of a democracy:

• Acceptance of Electoral Results: Despite his clear defeat in 2020, President Trump stridently refuses to accept the results and still claims the elections were rigged.  He began a series of over sixty legal suits — all of which have been turned down by the courts — to overturn state results and encouraged officials in Republican-controlled state to reverse their state outcomes.  Republican leaders were initially supportive of Trump’s attempt to overturn election results.  While most now agree that Joe Biden won the election, those same leaders continue, even now, to claim vague “irregularities” in the elections that warrant more restrictive voting laws.  The handful of Republicans who speak out clearly against the ex-president face almost certain electoral defeat in their primaries.
• Unambiguous Rejection of Violence: While most Republicans vaguely disavow violence in the abstract, few have unambiguously condemned the January 6 insurrection.
• Refusal to Break Definitively with Extremist Groups.

In an important follow-up article to their book How Democracies Die — which I’ve reviewed here — Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky argue that the greatest threat to American democracy is the possibility of a stolen presidential election in 2024.  Based on the antidemocratic behavior above, they contend, the Republican Party is now willing to overthrow the election.  They fear that by 2024 the party may have the ability to do so.  

Constitutional Weaknesses

There are two great weaknesses in the American Constitution that abet the current Republican threat to our democracy.

Dependence on Forbearance

The first weakness is that 

our constitutional system relies heavily on forbearance. Whether it is the filibuster, funding the government, impeachment, or judicial nominations, our system of checks and balances works when politicians on both sides of the aisle deploy their institutional prerogatives with restraint. In other words, they do not engage in constitutional hardball, … deploy[ing] the letter of the law in ways that subvert the spirit of the law.

A dangerous example of non-forbearance occurred after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.  In accordance with the Constitution, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated the moderate Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, refused to allow the Senate even to consider the nomination.  As a result, the succeeding president, Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated the conservative Neil Gorsuch, whom the Republican Senate quickly confirmed.  Although it had never previously happened in American history, McConnell’s action was completely legal in that it was not prohibited by the Constitution.  McConnell, however, played “hardball,” using his power without restraint to steal a Supreme Court seat from the Democrats, thus subverting the clear intent of the Constitution.

More egregiously, McConnell has also made it clear that if Republicans gain control of the Senate next year, as Majority Leader he would not allow the Senate to consider a Biden appointment to the Court in 2024.

Minority Rule

The second great weakness is that in order to protect the minority from overreach by the majority, several important constitutional provisions, for instance, the Bill of Rights, protect the rights of the minority.  But there are less often considered provisions that allow for minority obstruction or even minority rule of government.  For instance, the Constitution provides each state, regardless of population, two Senators, giving small, mostly rural states disproportionate representation in the Senate.  Currently, Republicans predominate in rural areas while Democrats predominate in states with dense urban areas.  As a result, the current fifty Republicans represent forty million fewer voters than do the fifty Democrats.

A similar provision prevails in the Electoral College.  Republicans have won the popular vote for president only once since 1988; a Republican president, however, has governed the country for nearly half of that time.  As a result, the last three justices on the Supreme Court were nominated by a president chosen by a minority of the country and confirmed by Senate majorities that represented the will of only a minority of American voters.

There are also a number Supreme Court decisions that allow the minority party to govern.  The Court has, for instance, ruled political gerrymandering legal.  This gives state governments the authority to create voting districts that can greatly advantage their own party.  Those same legislatures can also gerrymander their own state legislative districts to facilitate their own party’s ongoing dominance over the state government.

Legal Infrastructure to Steal Elections

Republican-controlled states have passed laws to give their partisan legislatures (or their appointees) the power to interfere with and conceivably overturn elections. 

The approved measures allow Republican-controlled state legislatures or election boards to sideline or override local election administrations in Democratic strongholds. This would allow state legislatures or their appointees to meddle in local decision- making, purge voter rolls, and manipulate the number and location of polling places. [Ziblatt and Levitsky].

Local election officials traditionally have the power to throw out even large numbers of ballots for minor technicalities (eg an oval not being completely penciled in or a typo or spelling mistake in the mail-in ballot form).  These new laws now give partisan officials the authority to make those decisions and throw out ballots, for instance, in Democratic strongholds.  Laws have been passed to give the state legislatures or their appointees the authority to suspend local officials and to sue or prosecute them for their mistakes.  There is no evidence of significant misbehavior by election officials, but threats of expensive suits or legal punishment could force officials to make partisan decisions or abandon their jobs altogether.

Republican state legislatures have also passed voter suppression measures aimed specifically at ways of voting more often used by the poor, minorities, or immigrant communities, including:

• limiting or eliminating ballot drop boxes,
• reducing the number of polling places,
• limiting mail-in balloting,
• reducing early voting opportunities,
• and even, famously, in Georgia, prohibiting the offering of food and water to voters waiting in line.

While the legislature-controlled power over elections is indeed ominous, there is disagreement about how effective the other voter suppression measures would be.

Much, perhaps all, of this legal infrastructure is constitutional, but it represents anti-democratic hardball at its worst.

Undermining trust in the electoral system

Since the presidential election, many Republicans have refused to unambiguously reject the “Big Lie,” the allegations that the election was stolen.  While this will not have a legal effect on Biden’s presidency, it is seriously undermining confidence in our elections process.  Perhaps worse, congressional Republican candidates have recently been declaring in advance of the election the intention to sue in the event they lose, casting doubt on the electoral system itself.  So far no one in the party leadership has condemned such behavior.  Republican Party strategy seems based on the assumption that our electoral system itself cannot be trusted.  

Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of any democracy; perhaps even more important is confidence in those free and fair election.  Voter suppression threatens the freedom of elections and the Republican Party is now preparing to threaten electoral fairness by giving its own partisans power over elections.  The Republican leadership has joined the party’s widely acknowledged leader, former President Trump, in battering confidence in the electoral system quite successfully.  A recent poll confirmed many others:

66 percent of Republicans continue to insist that “the election was rigged and stolen from Trump,” while just 18 percent believe “Joe Biden won fair and square.” Twenty-eight percent of independent voters also said they think Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election,

Modern democracies have generally not been overthrown by sudden and obvious coups.  Rather they occur gradually, death by a thousand cuts.

Are You Happy with the Arizona "Audit"?

David Hilfiker

The conspiracy-tinged Arizona recount of the 2020 presidential election has returned its verdict: There was no evidence of fraud.  In fact, President Biden received 360 more votes than had been officially reported.

The results, however, are hardly a cause for celebration among those who already know that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history.  While some Trump supporters undoubtedly thought they would find fraud and even overturn the election and progressives were afraid of fraud in the audit itself, even the benign result sowed further doubt upon the integrity of the American electoral system. 

Any Republican effort to overturn the election, of course, is almost certain to end in defeat.  Won’t that, one might ask, increase confidence in the electoral process?  To a small degree, maybe.  But the real damage was done long ago when the recount was ordered, indicating to the average citizen there was something wrong with the election.  The charges are no longer “fraud” because that’s been discredited multiple times; now the claim is only that there is something “irregular” going on, a charge so vague that it cannot be proven false.

Governor Greg Abbot’s order for a recount in Texas — made within days of Trump’s recent demand — gives some indication of its real intent: Trump won the state, so it’s hard to see any other purpose than to cast doubt on the election process itself.

Wide-spread doubts will have several deleterious results:

• They’ll fuel the Republican efforts to restrict voting rights and write election regulations that discourage Democratic voters from turning out. 
• The doubts will, Republican hopes, spur its base to turn out in high numbers.  (Ironically, the strategy may well backfire: Republicans who believe the false assertions, fearing their vote won’t count, won’t show up while the strategy may anger Democratic voters and energize them to vote.)
• The violence of the January 6 insurrection — inspired by the Big Lie of a stolen election — emphasizes that these growing doubts about elections can have serious real-life consequences for our democracy, including violence.  
• Perhaps the most serious outcome will be to acclimatize the Trump base to the belief that, as Jennifer Rubin writes, “election results are neither final nor inviolate, but merely a prelude to further efforts to overturn election results — by force, if need be.”

The danger should not be underestimated.  An American Enterprise Institute poll shortly after the January 6 insurrection found that three in 10 Americans, including 39% of Republicans, agreed that "if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions."

The Arizona recount has inspired other state recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas.  In many other states, bills are passing through legislatures to fund similar efforts.  And still other bills have shifted election responsibilities from governors and nonpartisan local officials to partisan officials and/or state legislatures.  There are even proposals in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri to give the state legislatures control over the results of the election although none of these bills has passed or is even likely to.

A free and fair electoral process is essential to a functioning democracy.  Probably more important, without the confidence that elections are free and fair, the losing sides will not consider the winning side’s government legitimate.  As it is, only 30% of Republican voters have confidence in the electoral process.

Under such circumstances, American democracy is in great peril.

The General's Warning

David Hilfiker

On October 30 last year, four days before the 2020 election, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, made a personal call to his Chinese counterpart General Li Zuocheng.  According to the new book Peril by seasoned and reliable Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Milley had become so worried that President Donald Trump’s mental state and erratic behavior might precipitate armed conflict that he took this unprecedented step to reassure Li that the US would not attack China.  

Milley had seen intelligence indicating China thought the US was preparing to attack them.  He was so concerned that Trump’s unreliable conduct might evoke Chinese retaliation that he even guaranteed Li that there would be no surprise: he promised he would personally call Li if a US attack were imminent.

Three months later, just after the insurrection at the Capitol, Milley again called Li to reassure him.  Fearful that Trump would do something rash, Milley also tried to reduce tensions with China by postponing scheduled military exercises in the Pacific.  He did not relay his conversations with Li to the President.

In a call between Milley and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about the same time, Pelosi asked Milley what precautions were in place to stop Trump from ordering a unilateral nuclear strike.  She, too, was concerned that Trump had become unstable, calling him “crazy.”  Milley assured her that precautions were in place, but he concurred with her assessment that Trump was unstable.  “Madam Speaker,” Milley said, “I agree with you on everything.”  Then, according to the book,

Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved.  Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood … in what he considered an “oath.”

He was not, of course, the only official to be deeply worried.  CIA Director Gina Haspel, for instance, reportedly told Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”  

Former White House chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, has told friends that

The depths of [Trump’s] dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it's more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.

Milley’s actions and the resultant fall-out have been all over the news the past week, so none of this may be new to you.  Even after my years of following Trump closely, however, the clarity and specificity of the quotes from Milley, Haspel and Kelley still shock me.

Although many (including me) have worried about Trump and the “nuclear button,” Milley, Haspel, et al are not armchair pundits and they were close to the action.  They, too, were afraid.  By promising to warn Li in the event of an impending attack, Milley was laying the groundwork for extraconstitutional action to protect the world from his Commander in Chief.

Milley was subjecting himself to possible charges of treason.  Since the public revelations earlier this week, Milley has essentially confirmed them by issuing no denials.  He clearly felt the danger to the country was more important than his possible prosecution.

General Milley saw

parallels between Jan. 6 and the 1905 Russian Revolution, which set off unrest throughout the Russian Empire and, though it failed, helped create the conditions for the October Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolsheviks executed a successful coup that set up the world’s first communist state. Vladimir Lenin, who led the revolution, called 1905 a “dress rehearsal.”

A similar logic could apply with Jan. 6, Milley thought as he wrestled with the meaning of that day, telling senior staff: “What you might have seen was a precursor to something far worse down the road.”

The behavior of the Republican Party reveals what might be that “worse down the road.”  The party has not only refused to disavow Trump’s behavior, but it is also doubling down.

A danger in the inordinate number of threats from Trump and his party is that we will lump them together in our memory and forget the depth and breadth of what and continues to happen.  Woodward and Costa remind us of our crucial responsibility to remember, to keep telling the individual stories, to keep the show from getting past a dress rehearsal.