The Cowardice of Leaders Threatens Democracy
Democracy falters when leaders lack courage. Integrity and accountability are the best defenses against abuse.
By Jeremi Suri
“A democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
Six years ago, I spoke with Shirley Abrahamson, a pioneering state Supreme Court judge for more than forty years. She was respected around the country by jurists in both parties. The child of Jewish immigrants, Abrahamson had lived through countless political crises that tested American democracy, including the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. Abrahamson told me that although the partisanship of recent years was not new, the “lack of courage” from key leaders startled her: “Men of principle in the highest roles now care only about keeping power.” That was different, Abrahamson recounted, from the politics of prior decades, which were more insular but still built on respect for constitutional principles and basic facts.
Abrahamson died in late 2020, but her diagnosis was confirmed at the start of the next year. On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump capped two months of efforts to steal an election that he had lost by encouraging his supporters to prevent the certification of his defeat. When those following his words violently attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatened the lives of elected representatives, and injured police officers, he initially did not call them off or take action to protect the Capitol. The evidence is clear that he was, at minimum, derelict in his duty, and likely guilty of violating his oath to the Constitution. Some will deny this account, but the details are corroborated by Republicans who served close to him and witnessed his actions. Documentary and video evidence is also corroborating. To deny this account is tantamount to denying that the University of Texas football team lost to Ohio State in the college football playoffs.
One week after the January 6 insurrection, which disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump. His trial began in the U.S. Senate on February 9. If convicted, former President Trump would now be barred from serving in any public office again. Conviction required a two-thirds vote from the senators who a month earlier had to run for their lives from the mob. They all knew what had happened, and even those who continued to question the outcome of the election understood that a violent mob attack on Congress could not be tolerated again. Convicting the former president for his responsibility should not have been difficult. Trump really had no defense, and this was evident during the inept presentation of his lawyers at the Senate trial.
The barrier to conviction was not disagreement about what happened or why. The challenge for Republican senators came from Trump supporters who continued to advocate for the man who tried to steal the election. These militant voices were not representative of the country as a whole, but they promised to exact revenge in Republican primaries on anyone who voted to convict. Trump encouraged those threats, even as he claimed innocence of any wrongdoing.
On February 13 the Senators delivered their verdict. All fifty Democrats voted to convict Trump, joined by only seven Republicans. Three of the Republicans (Senators Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, and Ben Sasse) had just won reelection, so they would not have another primary for almost six years. Three of the Republicans (Senators Richard Burr, Mitt Romney, and Pat Toomey) would not seek reelection. The only Republican to vote for conviction and seek reelection within the next four years was Lisa Murkowski, who benefited from ranked-choice voting in Alaska that made her less dependent than other senators on Republican primary voters.
Forty-three Republican senators buckled to threats from Trump and his supporters. They could not bring themselves to hold the man who tried to steal the election and sent a mob after them accountable because they feared for the opposition of his supporters. Although they had all taken an oath to the U.S. Constitution, they violated that oath to limit risk to their positions from a small, determined group of criminal defenders. Imagine if earlier generations of American leaders had made similar calculations at the time of the Revolution or the Civil War or the Second World War.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, accepted the case against Trump:
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he'd lost an election. Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. The House accused the former President of, quote, 'incitement.' That is a specific term from the criminal law. Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.”
As McConnell knew, Senate conviction did not require a debate about criminal law. The Constitution empowered the Senate to judge whether the president had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.” McConnell’s own description of Trump’s feeding “wild falsehoods” to the mob and his responsibility for “provoking the events of that day” was surely enough to convict.
McConnell went further in giving clear justification for conviction, based on the president’s failure to faithfully execute the law, required by the Constitution:
“It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the administration. But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.”
McConnell and the many Republican senators who followed his lead (including Senators John Cornyn and John Thune) wanted to end Trump’s political career because they understood his threat to American democracy, but they did not have the courage to land their own blows. They left it to others – the criminal justice system or the electoral process – to do the difficult work.
We all know what happened next. After eluding conviction in the Senate by bullying Republicans, Trump continued on that path to seize the party’s nomination in the next presidential election, delay legal trials, and then defeat an ailing successor and his last-minute replacement. Trump benefited from fortuitous circumstances, but he had a chance only because the elected leaders in a position to hold him accountable chose to back off, even after the worst act of presidential abuse of power in the nation’s history.
If McConnell, as party leader in the Senate, had led by voting for accountability, he probably would have elicited other Republican votes for a conviction and disqualification of Trump from future office. Republicans needed another leader to shelter them from Trump’s threats, and McConnell was the most respected party figure in the Senate. The cowardice of one man who knew better left democracy vulnerable. We are now paying the price.
The lesson for today is clear. Cowardice in the face of Trump’s bullying will further undermine democracy. Citizens at all levels must show courage in the coming years. This is not a call for resistance, but a reminder that we must stand by our principles and avoid the temptation to wait for someone else to do the necessary work. Above all, we must demand that elected leaders follow through on their vital role of oversight for nominees, policy proposals, and various executive actions. And the same logic applies to figures other than Trump, including Democrats. No one should get a moral pass on bad behavior because they have power.
Democracy does not require moral perfection. What it demands is the courage to check misuses of power. That is the “sum total of courage” Eleanor Roosevelt described after the nation made it through a depression and a world war. We can make it through again if we find similar courage. The damaging cowardice after January 6 should inspire renewed resolve today.
Do not just go along. Do the hard work of moral accountability for friend and adversary alike. Courage is not optional; integrity is not situational. Democracy requires consistent courage and integrity, even as we continue to disagree.
Also see in:
German, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish
Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University's Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”
It still infuriates me that these people, who also took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, are so gutless and complicit in the undermining of our Democracy. History will not judge them well. And I guess they don't have consciences, otherwise I would ask how they can sleep soundly at night.