“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine told her colleagues on June 1, 1950. “It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…. I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American.” “Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,” she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles, and the ones making those attacks were in her own party. Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, who was sitting two rows behind her, led a faction that had cowed almost all of the Republican Party into silence by accusing their opponents of “communism.” Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. She had seen the effects of his behavior up close in Maine, where the faction of the Republican Party that supported McCarthy had supported the state’s Ku Klux Klan. “Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America,” Senator Smith said. “It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.” Senator Smith wanted a Republican administration, she explained, but to replace President Harry Truman’s Democratic administration—for which she had plenty of harsh words—with a Republican regime “that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation.” “I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” “I doubt if the Republican party could do so,” she added, “simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.” “I do not want to see the Republican party win that way,” she said. “While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.” “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist,” she said. “They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.” Smith presented a “Declaration of Conscience,” listing five principles she hoped her party would adopt. It ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.” In 1950, six other Republican senators signed onto Senator Smith’s declaration, leading McCarthy to sneer at “Snow White and the Six Dwarves.” Other Republicans quietly applauded Smith’s courage but refused to show similar courage themselves with public support. In a statement in honor of the 75th anniversary of Smith’s Declaration of Conscience, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) noted that our time resembles hers, and decried the “character assassination, baldfaced lies, petty insults, and round-the-clock disinformation” of MAGA Republicans. “[T]he hollowing out of American political language…tracks the corruption of American government and the disappearance of serious policy debate,” he wrote. “These movements of thought are not just part of one politician’s campaign for power. They are in service of a ruling public philosophy, which treats the government as an instrument for class plunder and private self-enrichment, a get-even-filthier-rich-quick scheme for the president and his family and friends.” But for those who believe “that the government should be an instrument for the common good of all and the defense of our freedoms and civil rights, the state of politics in the country is a…serious threat to the survival of democratic institutions and the possibility of democratic progress.” “The essential work of democracy is being trashed by the rule-or-ruin politics of the MAGA party,” Raskin wrote. “This is not a partisan exercise we are engaged in today to save and strengthen democracy in America…. MAGA and [the Department of Government Efficiency] are engaged in a hostile takeover of all the political institutions and programmatic achievements of American democracy.” “Here in America we have a supreme Constitution, not a supreme leader,” Raskin wrote. “Democracy is not just a static collection of rules and practices. It is an unfinished project in motion, a constant work in progress. And we must never forget that democracy is the political system in service of human freedom.” A month ago, another Maine senator, Independent Angus King, recalled Smith’s Declaration of Conscience in a speech to his colleagues in the Senate. “I fear that we are at a similar moment in history,” he said. “And…today’s ‘serious national condition’ [involves] the President of the United States. Echoing Senator Smith, today’s crisis should not be viewed as a partisan issue; this is not about Democrats or Republicans, or immigration or tax policy, or even the next set of elections; today’s crisis threatens the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries.” “What’s at stake,” he said, is “the driving force behind the basic design of our Constitution—the grave danger to any society is the concentration of power in one set of hands.” King quoted framer of the Constitution James Madison, who warned: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” And yet, King said, “this ‘accumulation of all powers’ is exactly what is happening today, before our very eyes. Although many in this body unfortunately seem determined to ignore it, deliberately ignore it, the evidence is everywhere: from the elimination of Congressionally-established agencies to the withholding of appropriated funds…to issuing executive orders purporting to be law in place of legislation to sidestepping if not ignoring court orders: This President is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert—and therefore complicit…. [T]his President is attempting to govern as a monarch, unbound by law or Constitutional restraint, not as a President subject to the constraints of the Constitution and the rule of law.” King implored his colleagues to “reclaim our power…. You know, do our job.” He reminded them: “Each of us swore—swore, mind you—to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic’; [and that we would] ‘bear true faith and allegiance to [the Constitution].’ Clearly,” he said, “the Framers knew there might someday be ‘domestic’ enemies of the Constitution and made it our sacred obligation to defend the Constitution from them,” and he called for his colleagues to stand alongside him to do so. Last night, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) told host Jimmy Kimmel that Republican senators are indeed unnerved by Trump’s behavior and the actions of the administration. The problem, Booker said, is what Thomas Jefferson said: “‘When the public fears their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears its people, there is liberty.’” Republicans in office “are so afraid of Donald Trump that they are letting things go,” Booker said “We the people have to make our politicians fear the consequences of…doing wrong more than the fear that Donald Trump will run a primary against them, or put $100 million, or troll them on the internet. This is…one of those moments when we are not going to see change in Washington unless more of us have said enough.” Recalling the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Booker said that “the problem today we have to repent for is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but also the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. This is the time Americans have to step up and let their voices be heard.” Seventy-five years ago, Senator Smith’s voice was largely ignored in the public arena. But she was right. Four years later, the Senate condemned McCarthy, and after his death in 1957, Wisconsin voters elected Democrat William Proxmire, who held the seat for the next 32 years. And while Senator Smith was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, McCarthy has gone down in history as a disgrace to his state and to the United States of America. — Notes: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf Representative Jamie Raskin, “Statement of Congressman Jamie Raskin on the 75th Anniversary of Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s Declaration of Conscience,” June 1, 2025. Facebook: You’re currently a free subscriber to Letters from an American. If you need help receiving Letters, changing your email address, or unsubscribing, please visit our Support FAQ. You can also submit a help request directly. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Saturday, May 31, 2025
May 31, 2025
Three!
A week from today, it will be the third anniversary of this newsletter. That’s hard for me to believe. We’ve been through a lot together.
I started the newsletter just as the House January 6 Committee hearings were getting underway. I wanted to write about voting and election law, the intersection of much of my academic work and my personal passion, because I’m one of those people who believe voting is the right that unlocks all the other rights. But the newsletter took on a life of its own, and increasingly, I found I was using my experience as a prosecutor at DOJ to translate the legal proceedings we were in the thick of. Now, here we are. I don’t think any of us expected that in our lifetimes, democracy, which we have been able to take for granted for so long, would be in a fight for its life, under challenge by an American president. There is a lot ahead of us in the coming year, and I hope you’ll stay here with me at Civil Discourse for it. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be finishing up my first book, Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy. What a time to be rereading and writing about the fundamentals of American history and our legal system—I’m sure you all have noticed some of that creeping into the newsletter and my television commentary (I actually caught myself talking about the Founding Fathers on MSNBC last week). But I believe that understanding our system and how it’s supposed to work, as opposed to where Trump and his minions are trying to lead us, is critical to getting through this, so I continue to do that work. If I’m a little quieter than usual as I finish up the book, I hope you’ll be patient with me. But, I have plans to speak with some important guests on Substack live these next few weeks, people who understand the threat of autocracy and are not afraid to speak plainly about the moment we are in. We need that sort of courage right now, and I hope you’ll join us and bring along some friends. It’s less a celebration of Civil Discourse’s third anniversary than it is a time to gather our resolve and steel ourselves for what’s to come. It would have been one thing for the Supreme Court to go all in on the unitary executive theory and create an uber-powerful presidency with Barack Obama in the White House. Or even Ronald Regan or Jimmy Carter. I would not have been a fan; I think it’s a fundamental misread of the separation of powers the Founding Fathers created—important not only because it is required by our founding documents but because it makes sense, and it’s how a country prevents itself from being taken over by a dictator. But for the Supreme Court to do it now, with Donald Trump in office, is mind-numbingly senseless. In the presidential immunity case, there was mention of the importance of writing rules for “all time,” as though a majority of the Court has a total lack of self-awareness about the times we are actually living in and the threat of succumbing to an all-powerful presidency. During these difficult years for our democracy, I’ve had the privilege of writing to you and speaking out on MSNBC and in podcasts. Traveling around the country, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of you in person. Every day, you remind me why all of this matters. I am deeply moved, and also sustained, by the care, the thoughtfulness, the dedication, and the unbounded patriotism Americans are displaying in our moment of greatest need. We owe our children and our grandchildren the same freedom many of our grandparents and great-grandparents came to this country for and/or fought on the battlefields in Europe and elsewhere to sustain. History dubbed them the greatest generation. I wonder what it will call us? Mostly tonight, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. It’s good that we are not alone in the fight for the Republic. Our support for each other is what sustains democracy. Thank you for being a part of the Civil Discourse community. And also, because I know there are those among you who will fuss if I don’t, a couple of chicken pictures for tonight. The second one includes a “friend” who dropped in to share their snack.
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