Commentary: Vote to keep the tyrant out of the White House
When Nathan Cutler, an 18th-century ancestor of mine who lived near Albany, New York, heard that British soldiers had killed some of the American farmers who were trying to defend their weapon supply in Lexington, Massachusetts, he went directly to the recruiting station and joined the New York militia.
He joined the Patriot cause on Oct. 12, 1775. He was commissioned a lieutenant, fought the British as a member of George Washington's Continental Army at Saratoga, Fort Miller, Fort Edward, and West Point, and served until the close of the war. You may well have a similar story to tell about an ancestor of yours.
About a year after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, a committee of United States congressmen — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston — wrote the Declaration of Independence. Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, it summarized the causes of the revolution. Our Patriot ancestors like Nathan Cutler decided they had to take up arms against King George III, the Founders wrote, because, among other things, the king had:
Because the British king's character was "marked by every act which may define a Tyrant," they found that he was "unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
In the war that followed, between 25,000 and 70,000 American patriots lost their lives. Some 6,800 were killed in battle. Thousands died of disease, many in the rotten ships the British used as prisons.
We have those who made the ultimate sacrifice and their compatriots, in arms and in supportive roles, to thank for our freedoms today. As Benjamin Franklin observed during the Constitutional Convention, we have a republic only if we can keep it.
The questions of the moment are, did Donald Trump as president and immediately following the 2016 election:
Donald Trump nominated 234 justices and judges during his term in office — three Supreme Court justices, 54 U.S. Court of Appeals judges, and 174 District Court judges. Many have been embroiled in controversy.
The Republican-appointed supermajority of the Supreme Court, including "his judges" Neil Gorsuch, Brett Cavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, held on July 7, 2024, that "A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his 'conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority."
Rather than make clear that trying to overthrow the Constitution's peaceful transfer of power is not an official act, the justices sent the whole matter back to the trial judge.
On Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Trump stormed the United States Capitol. The attack disrupted a joint session of Congress convened to certify the results of the presidential election of 2020, which Trump lost to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d'etat. For having given a speech before the attack in which he encouraged a large crowd of his supporters near the White House to march to the Capitol and violently resist Congress's certification of Biden's victory — which many in the crowd then did — Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House of representative for "incitement of insurrection."
Just as the British king was accused of doing in the Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump has "excited domestic insurrections amongst us."
Judge J. Michael Luttig, a retired member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a counsel to President Reagan, has described Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, as "a betrayal of the United States ... the essence of treason." In an interview by Jeffery Rosen at the National Constitution Center on August 10, 2023, Judge Luttig stated: "[Special Counsel] Jack Smith and the Department of Justice could have charged the former president with insurrection. And it would have proven its case without question, but it would have required the United States of America to address and convince a jury that the president's speech was irrelevant to that charge of insurrection."
On July 1, 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice summarized the effect of the majority opinion in Trump v. U.S. as follows: "The Supreme Court Gives the President the Power of a King."
Will our descendants be called upon to take up arms again against another tyrant, this time in the White House? Will another American Revolution have to be fought to regain our democracy?
God forbid. Don't fail to vote before or on Nov. 5. No election has ever been more consequential.
Rupert Cutler is a former Michigan State University faculty member, U.S. Department of Agriculture assistant secretary and member of Roanoke City Council. He lives in Roanoke.
