Harry Litman - How Close Are We to the Tipping Point?
Last week, Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead defense attorney in his New York criminal trial, was confirmed and sworn in as Deputy Attorney General, the second-ranking official in the Department of Justice. Emil Bove, who has served as acting Deputy Attorney General (and Trump’s chief henchman and enforcer) for the last month, has now become the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (“PADAG”), another position of wide-ranging authority in the Department.
The installation of these two men suggests a thought experiment aimed at understanding our proximity to authoritarian rule.
Arguably, the closest the country came to losing democratic rule in the aftermath of the 2020 election was Trump’s attempt to use the Department of Justice to sow doubt and chaos that he could then capitalize on to change the results. The events of January 6 were certainly more convulsive, but at that point, the procedures for the transfer of power were underway, and Trump’s loss was fixed in the country’s mind. The violence and glaring illegitimacy of Trump’s last stand would have left him very hard-pressed to seize and maintain power.
The DOJ episode, by contrast, took place behind closed doors and was designed to take us three-quarters of the way to an authoritarian overthrow before the country knew what was happening. As Trump put it in a call to top DOJ officials, “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/how-close-are-we-getting-to-the-breaking