Republicans’ silence is complicity with Trump’s lying attacks on American democracy

As a Jew born in 1953, I have spent a great deal of time wondering how the Holocaust could happen.

Germany was a modern society, advanced in science and arts and culture. Yet, it adopted and implemented a policy to exterminate a large group solely based on its religious beliefs. And it achieved success in this awful quest, killing 6 million Jews, then one-third of the world’s Jewish population.

Obviously, many factors came together to allow this to happen, but I have glimpsed the most important contribution in our country in the last few weeks: good and decent people being unwilling to speak up in the face of lies and falsehoods. In Germany, people did not want to challenge Adolph Hitler as he rose to authority and then became powerful.

It was easier for them to be silent, while others carried out his evil vision.

I am not equating Donald Trump with Adolph Hitler. I am not equating what has happened since November 3 with the Nazis rise to power. As I write this, I am confident that Trump’s attempt to subvert the election will fail and Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president on Jan. 20, 2021.

But I am condemning those Republicans, especially those holding public office, who have been silent or even propagated lies. State Senator Shannon Grove, California’s Senate minority leader, tweeted images comparing Trump to Moses fighting a battle, saying she still believes the president will serve for “the next 4 years.” California District 4 Representative Tom McClintock called mail-in voting a “corrupted process” that allows ballots to be sent to “untold numbers of people who have moved or died.” He provided not a shred of evidence to support this.

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Top congressional Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have failed to criticize Trump’s efforts or recognize Joe Biden’s victory. Their statements, if anything, seem to tacitly support what Trump is doing.

Donald Trump lost by over 6 million votes. Biden will have 306 electoral votes. Yet Trump and his loyal supporters proclaim that they won the election. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trade Advisor Peter Navarro have both declared that they are preparing for a second Trump term notwithstanding the election results.

Since before the election, Trump has claimed massive vote fraud, but without a scintilla of evidence to support the accusation. His lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, held a press conference where they asserted a series of wild and unsupported allegations, including corrupt voting machines, Venezuelan influence, improprieties by George Soros and the Clinton Foundation and truckloads of improper ballots.

Yet even in the face of outrageous and even ridiculous allegations, most prominent Republicans said nothing.

Christopher Krebs, the official in the Department of Homeland Security responsible for election security, declared that it was a safe election and there was no evidence of significant fraud. President Trump then fired him. Again, Republican leaders said nothing.

The lies and falsehoods have consequences. According to opinion surveys, over 70% of Republicans believe that there was significant fraud in the election, despite the absence of any evidence to support this. This undermines the legitimacy of the election system, of the Biden presidency and of our democracy.

For over 200 years, since 1787, never has the United States seen such an effort to undermine an election or by a defeated incumbent to stay in power. Many elections have been far closer. John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by 112,000 votes.

Even with a real basis for suspecting fraud, Nixon conceded and Republicans recognized Kennedy’s victory. George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by carrying Florida by 537 votes. Al Gore had paths open to challenge that and pursue further recounts, even after the Supreme Court’s decision, but he chose to concede.

We have witnessed something unprecedented in the U.S. since Nov. 3. We must not ignore it, even if it has no consequences in terms of Biden assuming the presidency. All of us, liberals and conservatives, should loudly condemn those who have enabled Trump’s false claims by their words and by their silence. When they come up for reelection, their complicity in trying to undermine the 2020 election should be remembered.

No form of government lasts forever. Democracies are there until they are not. American democracy likely will withstand its most serious challenge. But the lesson must be that democracies are fragile and ours will survive only if our leaders of both parties stand up for it.

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law. He can be contacted at echemerinsky@law.berkeley.edu.