Revision Chronicles 3.4: The Ultimate Tipping Point?
When the "fetus of monarchy" begets the birth of fascism...
The forthcoming 3rd edition of Truth and Power will feature another new “Tipping Point” essay at the end of Part IV. Ominously (but appropriately) titled “Democracy at the Brink —- The End of Accountability?”, it offers a contemporary coda to the immediately preceding chapters on Congress, the Presidency and the relations and conflicts between them.
What follows is an excerpt from this new segment that refers to a key concept identified in a preceding Tipping Point about the troubling phenomenon known as “malignant normality” —- something that has also been covered previously on this Substack:
At the end of Part II, we examined the socio-political phenomenon of malignant normality, that dangerous situation in which illiberal (and even evil) actions come to be seen as socially and/or politically acceptable. Although the concept was initially identified around German medical professionals willingly participating in repugnant actions surrounding and including the Holocaust, the larger lesson pointed up the endemic danger to liberal democracy in general. Once norms of honesty and institutional integrity are allowed to be fractured, the downward slope to fascism becomes quite slippery indeed.
In other words, normalizing even protofascist behaviors or rhetoric will never end well.
Normalizing Lies
As mentioned, Hitler’s Nazi brand of fascism was incubated on the original Big Lie, one that ultimately served as the “permission” to normalize inhuman atrocities. But alas, humanity can have a slow learning-curve, as well as the propensity to compartmentalize these episodes as one-offs. The historical reality, however, is that respective Big Lies have since predicated tragedies at home from McCarthyism to the Vietnam War, and most existentially frightening, the January 6 insurrection.
The groundwork for this Big Lie was laid months in advance, as even before the 2020 election was held, Donald Trump gaslighted his followers by tweeting that the only way he could lose would be if it was stolen — a particularly egregious lie, given that this was the exact opposite of the truth. Unfortunately, more than just a previewed excuse, it incited a dangerously false narrative that was swallowed by legions of his supporters, as it is estimated that more than 300,000 tweets had already circulated before the 2020 election spreading variations of this whopper — and the sources of many of these were trolls and bots linked to Russian intel.
Even as the laborious task of vote tabulations inexorably made his loss apparent, Trump and his spokespeople doubled down on the Big Lie, launching relentless attacks on the system itself, again claiming fraud without an iota of evidence. Indeed, right down to the end, nothing --- including results being verified by exhaustive hand recounts — deterred the gaslighting, as a rogue’s gallery of propagandists persisted in ever-more-absurd claims of nonexistent “fraud”. Perhaps more troublingly, these nonsensical and malicious claims were willingly given airtime and abetment by “friendly” right-wing media outlets—most notably and prolifically, Fox News.
Thus, all it took to ignite the fuel for an actual insurrection was a final act of gaslighting, Trump used social media to call for a mass rally—with the Orwellian name, “Stop the Steal”—luring thousands of angry and radicalized supporters to Washington, then personally urging them to march on the Capitol, knowing full well that nothing“peaceful” was going to result, and refusing to call them off even when the insurrection turned horribly violent.
Whither accountability?
The horrors that Americans witnessed in real time on that awful day seemed to be (at least in the moment) a wake-up call, galvanizing condemnation, in many cases across party lines, with both Democratic and Republican Senators decrying the insurrection and pointing the causal finger directly at its obvious instigator --- Donald Trump. For this, he was quite properly subjected to his second impeachment.
As should be expected, the FBI went about investigating and arresting the most violent and destructive vandals among the insurrectionists themselves, including the organizers and leaders. They were then prosecuted in federal court by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which resulted in multiple convictions, with prison sentences for the worst offenders.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives launched the “January 6” select committee investigation. As discussed in Chapter 10, these televised hearings used video interviews of dozens of witnesses --- almost exclusively from within Trump’s own administration --- that painstakingly laid out an air-tight case of malfeasance, wrongdoing and abuse of power that, in many ways, made the Nixon’s look quaint by comparison --- and included referrals for criminal prosecution of the former President to the DOJ.
To make matters worse, upon finally leaving office Trump willfully absconded with highly classified documents in clear violation of the Presidential Records Act --- a law aimed specifically at preventing future Presidents from repeating Nixon’s shenanigans on the way out the door. While it is not unusual for outgoing officials to inadvertently get official records mixed in with personal items, instead of complying with the customary grace period to return these documents to the National Archives, Trump attempted to hide them --- necessitating a raid from the FBI for their retrieval.
Normalization by Inaction
The prosecution of January 6 insurrectionists during the Biden Administration notwithstanding, there was legitimate criticism from many quarters about the DOJ (under new Attorney General Merrick Garland) moving too cautiously and slowly in holding Trump himself accountable, particularly with his alleged crimes being so egregious and --- in the case of inciting an insurrection --- witnessed by the public on national TV.
Given just the normal procedural time-tables for prosecutions, the delays in appointing a Special Counsel (Jack Smith), and the overly cautious investigation (given that the J6 Committee had provided a veritable roadmap of the wrongdoing), helped enable the Trump legal strategy of “running out the clock” on the insurrection charges. In other words, Trump was gambling that he could get back in the White House and make the cases go away.
Normalization by Partisanship
Meanwhile, by luck of the draw, the documents case (that was otherwise air-tight), was assigned to a thinly qualified Trump-appointed judge who seemingly did everything in her power to sabotage prosecution with endless and unnecessary procedural hearings before improperly dismissing the case, necessitating a lengthy appeal, and further enabling the delay game that was ultimately successful.
With all that said, the failure of the most immediate avenue of accountability takes us back to Chapter 12 and the Trump impeachments.
Alas, as we learned, impeachment is an inherently political process. Just as it can be initiated without proper cause for political reasons (Clinton), it can similarly fail to be carried out when it should be. It is hard to deny that Donald Trump was objectively guilty of the high crimes for which he was charged in both impeachments. And while it may not have been surprising that all but one Republican Senator refused to vote to convict in the first one, the choice of so many who witnessed and publicly decried Trump’s insurrection to turn around and rationalize a vote for acquittal in 2021 was hard to justify.
Back in 1974, Nixon only resigned because he knew he would be convicted in his coming impeachment by a guilty vote that would include most of his fellow Republicans in the Senate. Somehow, forty-seven years later, that sort of bipartisan respect for the Constitution seems to be ancient history. In other words, hyper-partisanship has brought forth the failure of our system of checks-and-balances.
Normalization by Institutional Failure
By disqualifying him from future office, a conviction in that second Trump impeachment would have not only properly assigned political accountability for clear abuses of power, it would have also mitigated any strategy of delaying the criminal accountability he would seem to have faced for his lawlessness.
Indeed, as we also saw in Chapter 12, right before Nixon’s resignation a unanimous Supreme Court left a lasting message of impending accountability, i.e., that no President is above the law. Indeed, this super-precedent has since been ingrained in American law as a de facto clarifying footnote on the original Constitution.
Yet here a half-century later --- now in a worst-case instance --- we can’t have nice things. In perhaps a final death-blow to checks-and-balances, the Roberts Court effectively knee-capped that accountability in Trump v US (2024), incredibly ruling that a President is immune from criminal prosecution --- even after he leaves office --- for so-called “official acts” done while in office.
Notably, the Burger Court --- that in 1974 unanimously told Richard Nixon that he and all Presidents are accountable --- included 4 of his own appointees (one of whom properly recused), yet this group of Justices from different party backgrounds came together to uphold perhaps the most vital of our Constitutional firewalls. In stark and disturbing contrast, the 2024 Roberts Court majority --- who are more than willing to dismantle them --- are collectively the hand-picked product of the ideological partisan court-packing (described in Chapter 7) that has insidiously been in the works during the ensuing decades, and has now finally brought about institutional failure at the top of the Judiciary.
Consequences of Malignant Normalization
It should be remembered that the original sin of introducing the anti-constitutional “unitary executive” snake-oil was in a Hail Mary raised by Nixon’s lawyers in the 1974 tapes case, arguing that a President can’t be prosecuted by the DOJ unless, well, the President says so.
As one would hope, this disingenuous circularity was laughed out of the Court, but sadly this illiberal shortcut became a cause celeb amongst right-wing lawyers in the Reagan and George W. Bush Administrations. There is now palpable fear following Trump v US that pending cases in 2025 could bring us to the point where the Roberts Court’s ideological majority finally jumps the proverbial shark.
Meanwhile, the delay game indeed worked, as accountability has been avoided and Trump is back in the White House. Adding insult to injury, he issued pardons to convicted insurrectionists, including among them some of the worst elements of American extremism who were the organizers. Thus, at this writing the only accountability for the Big Lie has fallen on Fox, who are on the hook for $750 million after losing a defamation suit for lying about Dominion voting machines.
As for the damage done to our Founders’ creation, it is difficult to miss that the lack of accountability has encouraged the worst illiberal ambitions. As we will see in Part V, the current Trump Administration immediately unleashed a firehose of attacks --- most of these in clear violation of federal law --- on the Congressional power over appropriations, and the federal agencies Congress created to administer them.
The only tangible impediments to this onslaught have been a few courageous federal judges willing to uphold the law, sometimes in the face of harassment and even death threats. However, given what happened in Trump v US, as we sit here in 2025 it is unclear if the Roberts Court will have their backs.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have mostly ignored (and sometimes even encouraged) actions that threaten the Constitutional role of their own institution. Thus, this normalization by inaction and partisanship begat institutional failure. In other words, lack of accountability brought another Constitutional firewall down.
Therein lies the larger point. Ultimately, this isn’t about Richard Nixon or Donald Trump. It’s about the wisdom contained in Edmund Randolph’s famous warning about the inherent dangers of making a single President the head of the Executive. When someone in that position runs amok in the Machiavellian sense --- which, given the foibles of human nature, will inevitably occur --- the dangers become existential if accountability isn’t certain and the firewalls thus crumble.
To be sure, when an authoritarian Executive is allowed to usurp the power of the Legislative and Judicial, it is more than merely the “fetus of monarchy” --- it becomes, by modern definition, the birth of fascism…