Candidates for elected office in Illinois have long been asked to sign an oath pledging they won’t seek to overthrow the U.S. government. President Joe Biden signed before filing to run in the state’s Democratic presidential primary this year, but former President Donald Trump didn’t sign to get on the Republican presidential primary ballot.
The oath was required to run in Illinois beginning in 1951 but has been optional since 1972 when a federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional.
Trump’s failure to sign the oath is significant because he is the only presidential candidate in American history who incited a violent insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the election winner.
Trump still falsely claims he won the 2020 election, despite more than 60 court rulings that found Biden won.
We all saw the result of Trump’s election lies on Jan. 6, 2021.
Some of his most ardent supporters responded to his tweet summoning them to Washington to protest the congressional certification of Biden’s victory scheduled for that day. Obeying Trump’s call to march to the Capitol, they stormed the building and attacked police, injuring at least 140 officers. Four rioters died and five police officers died in the aftermath — four by suicide.
Rioters threatened lawmakers, along with Vice President Mike Pence (some shouted, “Hang Mike Pence” and constructed a gallows), in an effort to use force to stop Congress from taking the last step needed to make Biden president. The damages rioters inflicted on the Capitol cost taxpayers more than $30 million to repair.
Trump’s failure to sign the Illinois oath confirms what should be obvious: If he wins the Republican presidential nomination and then loses the general election, Trump will once again claim he won and say the election was rigged. He may tell his supporters to “fight like hell” (as he urged at a rally shortly before the Jan. 6 riot) to overturn his defeat.
I shudder to think about the violence that could break out if Trump issues such a call. I worry even more about the damage he could do to our democracy and our freedoms if he becomes president again and surrounds himself with loyalists who will do whatever he demands — even if it violates the law and the Constitution — to establish an authoritarian regime.
In a powerful speech Friday, Biden issued a dire warning of the dangers of Trump returning to the White House. Speaking near Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where Gen. George Washington and his troops spent the winter of 1777-78 during the Revolutionary War, Biden said they fought for what Washington called “a sacred cause”— the creation of a democratic nation. But Biden said that Trump is “willing to sacrifice our democracy, [to] put himself in power.”
We have witnessed a frightening increase in political violence in recent years. As The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday: “The Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol ushered in a new wave of politically charged violence and threats against elected officials, judges and government buildings that is shaking the democratic process this presidential-election year.”
Reuters reported in August that it had identified 213 cases of political violence, including at least 39 killings, in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 riot. It said the majority of the fatal actions have “come from the right.”
A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute published in October found that 33 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Only 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats agreed with the statement.
Trump glorifies violence when it takes place on his behalf. He watched the Jan. 6 riot on TV in the White House for just over three hours before taking any action at the urging of aides to stop it. He tweeted a one-minute video telling rioters: “We love you. You’re very special. … I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.” They followed his orders and dispersed.
Almost 1,200 people have been criminally charged with participating in the Capitol riot, more than 700 have pleaded guilty and more than 100 have been convicted in trials so far. Trump has said that if he is elected president he will pardon most or perhaps all of the rioters. He has absurdly called them “patriots” and “peaceful people.”
Campaigning Saturday in Iowa, Trump called on Biden to release all rioters still imprisoned, referring to the convicted criminals as “hostages.”
The twice-impeached former president could wind up in prison himself if he is convicted of any of the 91 criminal charges he faces for working to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory, holding onto classified government documents after leaving the White House and allegedly committing business tax fraud. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
I’ve spent most of my life campaigning for Democrats. But until Trump came along, I never heard of a Republican president in American history who opposed not just Democrats, but democracy itself — our nation’s defining quality.
And no matter how much I disagreed with Republican presidential candidates and presidents, I never found a single one who I considered unpatriotic and anti-American — until Trump.
Sadly, the Republican Party as we’ve known it since the days of President Abraham Lincoln is no more — the victim of a hostile takeover that Trump orchestrated by spreading lies, hatred and divisiveness.
Political parties change. Just witness how the Democratic Party that was pro-slavery in the 1800s embraced civil rights for Black Americans in the second half of the 1900s.
For the sake of our country, I hope and pray that the Republican Party undergoes a similarly dramatic transformation, rejects Trumpism and once again embraces democracy.
Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”