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America’s Reichstag Fire

reichstag

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In 1933, the Reichstag building which housed the German parliament was set on fire. The Nazis had barely been in power for four months, yet this incident served as the door to totalitarian consolidation. To this date, no one knows for sure who carried out this destructive act. The National Socialists, however, convinced President Hindenburg that the communists were responsible. With a few broad legal maneuvers, first came the Reichstag Fire Decree, then the Enabling Acts, and German democracy had signed its suicide pact. Something similar is taking shape in America right now.

The forceful entry into the Capitol Building on January 6th by a tiny fraction of a much larger group of peaceful protesters appears to have presented a pretext for the left to attempt to crush the opposition. This is being carried out by Democratic Party with the full complicity of the anti-Trump Republican faction, media, Big Tech, and big business. In addition to the gross suppression of free speech, blacklisting, and financial strangulation, impeachment charges have been levied against President Donald Trump.

Furthermore, the six senators and 121 House members who were acting within their constitutional rights and challenging electoral college votes, are under savage attack. The narrative that accommodates this brazen power grab is the ridiculous notion that this was an “insurrection” and a “coup attempt”. The false “coup” claim includes the constitutional prerogative by congressional leaders of challenging the validity of the electoral college votes.

The second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump reflects a deconstructed perversion of the American political system, where whole sections of its fundamental structure have been trivialized to the point of irrelevance. Under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives presented articles of impeachment against Trump and proceeded to do so by a vote of 232 to 197. The charge was for “incitement of insurrection.” Pelosi said on the floor of the lower chamber, “We know that the President of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country.

Claims of whether an actual “crime” or an “impeachable offense” were committed by the president remains subject to debate. A respected voice within this legal and constitutional dispute, comes from the renowned constitutional and criminal attorney, Alan Dershowitz. A professor emeritus of Harvard Law School and registered Democrat, Dershowitz has weighed in on the validity Trump’s second impeachment.

In a January 14th article published by The Hill, Dershowitz made it vehemently clear that it was Congress and not the president, that violated the Constitution. In fact, the prominent attorney accentuated the fact that the House violated six separate provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It is fundamental to keep in mind, that the weaponization of the impeachment process for partisan political/ideological purposes, is what is really turning America into a banana republic.

In the 1969 U. S. Supreme Court case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, it was established that incendiary speech is protected by the First Amendment unless it knowingly promotes “imminent lawless action”. Dershowitz concludes that the president’s First Amendment rights were clearly trampled upon with the House’s claim that his rhetoric led others to storm the Capitol Building. Consequently, a perceived impeachable crime is not possible when the charge levied is safeguarded conduct under the Constitution itself, as is the case of lawful sheltered speech. When one considers the fact that Trump explicitly said “…I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” this whole impeachment scheme becomes more absurd.

The president will be out of office before the Senate can actually hear the case. According to Dershowitz, Congress has no authority over a president once he leaves his office. The intention of “disbarring” Trump from the possibility of being a future candidate, by use of the impeachment provision against a then private citizen for this purpose, would surely lead to a constitutional crisis, engender civil unrest among the 75 million who voted for him and most likely, trigger a bitter Supreme Court battle.

The invoking of the 25th Amendment adds insult to injury. This 1965 addition to the Constitution was included, given the potential circumstances following John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The clear intent was to intervene in a situation where the president has become mentally incapacitated or actively dangerous. The pressure levied on Vice President Mike Pence to make use of this amendment is equivalent to the solicitation to carry out a palace revolution.

The Reichstag building, Germany (Commons)

The equating of the legal and expressed challenges to the election results and the ensuing electoral college vote with a “coup” attempt is sheer hypocritical madness. The Democrats have crepeatedly disputed the legitimacy of the 2016, as well as many others. Pelosi in a May 2017 tweet said “Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy and #FollowTheFacts”. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democratic congressman, is the current lead impeachment manager, yet he challenged the electoral vote certification from Florida in 2017. Kamala Harris in the Stephen Colbert Show in June 2020, when referring the BLM riots said, “…That they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”. This is riot incitement 100%, yet the underlying ideological premise of the BLM action, excuses her.

The Save America March was a free speech manifestation in the nation’s capital by a large group that represents nearly half the country and went to lawfully express grievances over a presidential election plagued with unquestionable mail ballot voting irregularities in numerous battleground states. The U. S. Constitution confers the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” While the radical action of the small faction that interrupted Congress is regrettable, it did not grant the left a license to squelch freedom and absurdly refer to this incident as an “insurrection”, a “coup attempt” or to levy false charges against a president to try and disqualify him from public office. This American Reichstag ploy must be stopped before it is too late.

Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.

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