The War After the Election
Scenarios of a January 6 Coup with Hostages, Martial Law and Civil War in a Semi-fictional eBook Project to Show How We Can Prevent It From Happening
As we Americans grapple with what is actually an "ongoing insurrection” in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, we risk being bombarded by an overload of information surrounding the "persona" of Donald Trump and other extraneous factors, and thus diverted from focusing on and implementing the critical reforms necessary to counter the predominant and most immediate existential threat to the nation's constitutional and democratic foundations: the abuse of excessive presidential power which would allow this ongoing insurrection to re-morph into a second coup attempt initiated from within the White House itself.
Other forces could eventually converge to lead the United States down a path towards authoritarianism, but unrestrained presidential power stands alone as having the capacity to result in a sudden nearly irreversible coup orchestrated across multiple levels of our federal system through the imposition of martial law and a “de facto suspension of constitutional processes.” None of the other individuals, movements or institutions which threaten our republic by themselves or in combination without the powers of the presidency could produce such a result.
Although this project begins with references to the 2020 coup attempt, its message is actually about the future, most imminently concerning what we can do during the 2024 election to counter the authoritarian forces active in American politics. It will assert that the remedies which need to be concentrated on to prevent an autocratic coup haven't been fully and properly identified, let alone implemented (not even in the January 6 committee’s otherwise excellent report). But most importantly, it advances legislative reforms and electoral strategies to avert such a national nightmare, first by illustrating in a semi-fictional format with the taking of hostages during the Capitol attack that:
WE CAME CLOSER TO A SUSPENSION OF THE CONSTITUTION ON JANUARY 6 THAN IS REALIZED EVEN NOW - BECAUSE IT IS NOT UNDERSTOOD HOW HOSTAGE-TAKING AND EVEN "LIMITED" MARTIAL LAW WOULD HAVE ARRESTED OUR CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES; AND THAT ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE DANGERS OF UNRESTRAINED PRESIDENTIAL POWER THAT ENABLED THE COUP ATTEMPT WERE WARNED AGAINST AS EARLY AS THE SUMMER OF 2020, LITTLE HAS BEEN DONE TO PREVENT THEIR MISUSE AGAIN TODAY.
In June of 2020 the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) convened a group of over 100 bipartisan former and current high-ranking American government officials and civic leaders and ran a series of political scenario exercises (or what the military would call "war games") which were summarized here concerning various outcomes for the 2020 presidential election.
TIP’s results - and what this project and others had been warning about since the spring of that year - accurately foreshadowed the events which culminated six months later in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the attack by insurgents on the United States Capitol.
The TIP report raised the possibility of almost every legal and illegal tactic that the Trump apparatus ultimately employed to facilitate its coup - including making allegations of "voter fraud," attempts to halt the counting of mail-in ballots, calls for recounts in multiple states, misuse of the 12th Amendment to overturn the results of the Electoral College - and reliance on both right-wing legacy and social media to echo and amplify pro-Trump messages and to ultimately urge its base to take to the streets.
"THE POTENTIAL FOR VIOLENT CONFLICT IS HIGH," TIP’S REPORT CONCLUDED
Of crucial concern to the Transitional Integrity Project was the President's ability to federalize the national guard and/or to deploy the military domestically – which TIP feared could cause a split between low level troops and National Guard units who might support Trump and high level officers who would want to keep the military out of politics.
But the Transitional Integrity Project missed the greatest potential threat overlaying all of these: that then President Trump might purposely stir up trouble and exploit it in order to declare “limited” martial law and prevent a peaceful transfer of power - and that this could cause a split not just between "high level military officers and low level soldiers," but a split even among those high level officers themselves because they would not know exactly HOW to "keep the military out of politics."
Judge J. Michael Luttig partially alluded to this in a written statement submitted to the January 6 committee: “America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”
However, both Luttig and the Transitional Integrity Project failed to more specifically identify the most potentially catastrophic and irreversible essence of the problem or offer a solution to it. Had Trump been able to sustain enough trouble (such as if hostages had been strategically taken or if there had been further street violence), it would be more proper to substitute the word “coup” for revolution and to much more strongly emphasize the constitutional “paralysis” as being potentially chronic.
The Transition Integrity Project included former Congressmen, state governors, United States Senators, cabinet members, White House Chiefs of Staffs, and Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security (as well as "nationally prominent journalists and communications professionals, social movement leaders, and experts on politics, national security, democratic reform, election law, and media").
That professionals of this stature would play "war games" in case the President of the United States refused to leave office peacefully - or that Donald Trump had the effrontery to even INSINUATE a potentiality so insulting to the dignity of the citizens and institutions of the United States of America - was not met with the grave alarm it demanded.
Here are links to the Transition Integrity Project’s report - and to this project’s warnings before the Capitol attack and regarding what to do in its immediate aftermath.
Dave Volek illustrated just how close we came to martial law - and how perilous the consequences might have been - in his Medium article published shortly after the attack on the Capitol titled “January 6 Might Have Been a Constitutional Crisis”:
"Just imagine if the Metropolitan Police had been delayed by another half hour in their advance to the Capitol. The frenzied insurgents might have found a few high-ranking politicians: assassination would have been within the realm of possibility.
Here is the speech Mr. Trump would have preferred to have given later on that day:
‘I have called on the military to deal with the unrest at the Capitol Building. To prevent further chaos, I am hereby suspending Congress until such time we regain safety of our elected officials. Should there be any further disruption of civil order, I will order martial law.’
From a legal perspective, this means the certification of the Electoral College was not done. So Mr. Biden cannot be president according to the Constitution and the rules around that Constitution. Mr. Trump would continue in that office until such a time when Mr. Trump could declare Congress safe enough to resume sitting.
Could this have really happened? Is it not within the possibility of Trump logic? Remember this is a man who says he believes the election was stolen after 60 court cases that failed to prove it was stolen.
The sad part is that a significant minority of Americans would have approved of the suspension of Congress. Of course, many other Americans would take to the streets in protest. And there would be some violence. That would have given reason for martial law and a more permanent suspension of Congress.
The military would have been in a difficult position indeed. Their oath is to uphold the Constitution, not support a particular party or its leader. The Constitution says that until the certification process is complete, the new president cannot take office. The certification process was not complete …
So what should the generals do?”
We now know it was much worse: rather than being thwarted by a full thirty minutes, the insurrectionists were merely feet and seconds away from being able to take hostages, with all that would have meant.
But how close we came to martial law isn’t primarily a matter of feet and seconds – it’s more accurately measured it by how close our constitutional processes came to being frozen “in a coup wrapped in a paralyzing constitutional crisis” – because Donald Trump was doing much more after the election to maintain his hold on power than losing 60 frivolous court cases:
Between Election Day and January 6 Trump was making a determined attempt not just to subvert our electoral processes, but to also place under his direct command all of the military and security levers of power of the federal government that mattered.
TO ENVISION A POST-COUP COURSE OF EVENTS … YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF:
WHAT WERE TRUMP’S REAL MOTIVES, AND WHAT DID HE HONESTLY EXPECT THAT THE DEMONSTRATORS COULD ACCOMPLISH AT THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6 SOLELY THROUGH PEACEFUL MEANS?
Anybody who genuinely upholds nonviolence as a basic foundation of our political system, or who has an open mind regarding the events of January 6 - including Trump supporters with a kindred spirit - should ask themselves:
When Trump directed the demonstrators to march to the Capitol, how did he think they could conceivably generate the outcome he was trying to achieve without the use of intimidation, coercion or violence? … and conversely, how could he have genuinely thought that the protesters could by themselves accomplish their objectives even through violent methods? … with the building itself and the lawmakers within it insulated from forced entry by the Capitol Police and metal barricades … the National Guard and other law enforcement entities only a phone call away … by him … if he chose to make it …
… or if the President had been able to join his supporters at the Capitol as he wanted to, what could they have done to accomplish their objectives through even their "wildest" behavior and actions by simply congregating around the building? … did Trump actually think the Democratic controlled legislature would have paid any attention to what was going on outside? … or have set aside its business of certifying Biden's election and instructed the security forces to allow Trump to enter the Capitol building itself at that critical moment in history? …. if not, would Trump have then attempted to use the demonstrators to force his way into the building (to thus culminate the invasion many of them had planned for)? ... and then what would he - and they - have done next ... ?
AND IF TRUMP AND THE INSURRECTIONISTS HAD BEEN ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY STOP BIDEN’S CERTIFICATION, WHAT COULD TRUMP REALISTICALLY HAVE THOUGHT THE COUNTERREACTION OF BIDEN SUPPORTERS AND OTHER AMERICANS WOULD HAVE BEEN?
Here is the statement one of the terrorist groups might have released just after Donald Trump’s speech later that same evening:
"We hold several high-ranking members of the United States government in our possession. Contrary to the rumors that we intend to execute them from the gallows that have been erected outside the Capitol building, we have no desire to harm them.
However, we cannot allow the recent election of President Trump to be stolen from us.
Therefore, we intend to keep these individuals safe until Congress can certify President Trump's reelection or until some other arrangement can be worked out.
Congress must not make the mistake of certifying Joseph Biden as the next President, otherwise we will not be able to guarantee the safety of the persons we are protecting from public outrage.
Representatives of the United States government will verify that we are indeed sheltering these officials safely and securely."
Sometime after the terrorists’ statement the offices of Trump, Senator McConnell, Speaker Pelosi (and perhaps even Chief Justice Roberts) might have put out a joint statement affirming only that hostages had been taken and that they were addressing the situation.
The statement would not mention whether one of the hostages was Vice President Pence. He had not been heard from. His whereabouts were unknown. There were rumors that the Secret Service was hiding Pence at an undisclosed secure location for his safety and to protect the presidential line of succession. There would be other rumors that he had ignored their advice and that something more chilling had happened …
It has been said that when somebody declares martial law, he is in fact saying "I am the law"
So who or what would have been "the law" that evening?
Would the United States federal government have kept functioning under “the rule of law” with its system of checks and balances?
Or would Donald Trump have made himself “the law,” acting unilaterally with complete power under the most extreme interpretation of Article II of the United States Constitution, perhaps on the verge of suspending constitutional processes by ordering martial law after having spent the preceding months organizing the levers of power of that government to be under his direct command - and now bolstered by terrorists holding high-level government officials hostage at gunpoint?
And how would Trump have used those powers to restore “public order” and quell the turmoil which would have definitely ensued?
Attempting to stop Biden's certification by having the vice president of the United States return slates of electors to the states under the guise of the 12th Amendment could have resulted in a still possibly reversible electoral coup which would have been opposed on some level by well over half of the American population.
But turmoil spiraling into "wilder" dimensions such as street violence or the strategic taking of hostages and culminating in martial law would have resulted in an even more dire and potentially irreversible outcome.
We don't fully know why Donald Trump didn't press ahead and impose martial law during or in the aftermath of the Capitol attack. Conceivably Trump was hoping and waiting for more counter-turmoil or for the insurrectionists to take hostages ... possibly Trump never actually intended to order martial law in the first place ... or perhaps he was thwarted in some other manner from pursuing his most sinister ambitions ...
But we must not assume that a man brazen enough to try to overturn the legitimate electoral processes of the United States of America wouldn't also be morally and psychologically capable of seizing the opportunity to commandeer dictatorial powers after such a move.
We take for granted that “it can’t happen here” and that our Constitution will operate to prevent such an occurrence. This project will illustrate that it can indeed “happen here” because of a few key loopholes in that Constitution – and because too many of us assume that our constitutional processes function by themselves.
WHAT CAN WE DO NOW TO PREVENT THE "ONGOING INSURRECTION" FROM BECOMING A FUTURE COUP OR A SLOWER SLIDE INTO AUTHORITARIANISM?
That is the question this project addresses.
The January 6 committee did an unexpectedly remarkable job of pinpointing Donald Trump as the central figure of the coup attempt. But its legislative proposals fall far short of its otherwise excellent work and fail to address the potential “constitutional paralysis” that Judge Luttig warned about.
There would have been no clear legal line of authority for the military or other law enforcement entities to follow in the constitutional crisis which would have ensued after an imposition of martial law by Donald Trump - nor for the rest of us as individuals or for our collective governmental and non-governmental institutions to follow.
While there are other forces which could lead the United States towards a slower slide into authoritarianism which will be discussed in later stages of this project, it is only unrestrained presidential power which could result in a sudden, irreversible coup that would be nearly impossible to peacefully rescind in the face of a president determined to perpetuate it to advance his own ends.
In the next sections it will be illustrated how we must go beyond the January 6 committee’s recommendations, and that our national focus must not be primarily on the imprisonment of Donald Trump, but rather on keeping him out of the White House through our legal, electoral and political systems; and also on restraining specific areas of presidential power that are vastly more important than what happens to Trump himself.
The system DID NOT “work” after the 2020 election as some saccharin optimists and apologists for its shortcomings even to this day like to say that it did. A few heroic figures held our institutions together for several months between Election Day and Joseph Biden’s inauguration with courageous actions which the rest of us have no right to take for granted as “automatic.” Our constitutional system won’t hold next time unless we as an entire society stop sleepwalking through the unfolding of history and rise to the occasion to expeditiously mend its fraying fissures and widening fault lines.
copyright by Alex Crisafulli
First published in Safeguard on Substack.com on August 12, 2022
The Petition to Safeguard the Constitution calls on Congress to pass legislation around a few specifically targeted areas to eliminate the presidential powers that would enable an autocratic coup from within the executive branch of the federal government.
The legislation would especially put rational restraints on presidential emergency powers and the ability of a president to impose martial law or to defy a Supreme Court order or Congressional resolution to rescind emergency declarations; and it would provide a clear constitutional line of authority for the military and the rest of us to follow to prevent a future president from any political party from misusing electoral processes or defying other legitimate means to remove him or her from office. The legislation in Pledge to Safeguard the Constitution is a comprehensive approach that goes directly to the fundamental core of the problem and would create an encompassing safety net around ALL presidential emergency powers.
Do more than just wait until the 2024 election to cast a vote. If the scenario presented in The War After the Election alarms you enough to take action to prevent it from happening, add your name to The Petition to Safeguard the Constitution on the form below:
Name: _____________________________
Coming in The War After the Election:
In the fictional storyline as Donald Trump tries to consolidate his power immediately after the Capitol attack, he might have assumed an expanded empowerment to implement what Trump would enigmatically refer to as "the ELRPO." “The ELRPO” actually existed in the early 2000’s (and a multitude of similarly obscure executive branch emergency powers still endure as law today).
It will be shown that powers such as the ELRPO could be clandestinely resurrected.
Here is a short passage from the next section:
It is probably surprising to the majority of Americans that the most extreme presidential powers which were referred to at the end of Part 1 and which Donald Trump often cryptically alluded to and came increasingly closer to using during the course of his presidency actually very recently existed in the United States for a brief time. In the aftermath of the Capitol attack, Trump might have started teasing out how he would resurrect and reinvigorate those powers.
Shortly after the joint statement had been released by the offices of the senior leaders of the United States federal government affirming that hostages had been taken during the invasion of the Capitol and that the situation was being "addressed," President Trump might have begun the process of separating himself from the other signatories to the statement by attempting to elevate his authority above theirs. "If the rest of them can't do anything to restore law and order,” he would tweet, "I may implement the ELRPO."
Nobody would have known what "the ELRPO" was - not even the very members of Congress who had enacted it into law not so many years earlier. Those legislators, other politicians, legal scholars and media entities scrambled to figure out just what Trump's tweet might have meant. "Maybe it's another 'covfefe'," someone half-bemusedly surmised, referring to what had either been the late night typo or coded message that Trump had once posted but which nobody had been able to decipher.
But it was far more dire than covfefe.
When Trump was asked later what "the ELRPO" was, he sidestepped the question. "Nobody ever talks about the ELRPO anymore. But it used to be the law … a very good law. It gives me all of these unbelievable powers that nobody’s ever seen before. The radical Democrats put an end to it. Nobody knows what the ELRPO can do. I might have to implement it through executive order.”
To find out what the ELRPO actually was read the next section of The War After the Election.
Thank you for reading Part 1 of The War After the Election. If you think the issues it addresses are as critical to our democracy as I do, please subscribe to a free trial of Safeguard to receive the next chapter along with ancillary articles which will assert that to prevent a future coup we must cut through the fog of names, rumors, court cases and other extraneous controversies swirling around the turmoil of Donald Trump’s persona and be laser-focused on reforming a few main areas at the perilous core of executive branch emergency powers.
Safeguard will also discuss HOW legislation to reform presidential power might be enacted as well as events which may arise during the 2024 election and afterwards - including unique strategies to keep Donald Trump from either manipulating electoral processes to regain the White House, or from abusing presidential power in the very real possibility that he legitimately does win reelection.
Sign The Pledge to Safeguard the Constitution now.
Please share Part 1 of The War After the Election freely with others and repost it on your social media sites in order to advance the cause of protecting our constitutional democracy.
Part 1 of The War After the Election is available for free syndication in publications - contact the author for the required permissions.