New Law Review Article: Hate on the Ballot 2020

Just in time for election 2020, today I posted Hate on the Ballot addressing the surge in hate crimes during the Trump campaign and presidency as well as its threat to national security. Here is the abstract:

This article demonstrates that Donald Trump normalized hatred and cruelty in our society since his campaign for the presidency in 2016. This hatred and cruelty emboldened, encouraged and empowered those who commit hate crimes. This violence divides Americans and pits them against each other. It allows foreign adversaries to exploit our divisions to weaken us. The article summarizes empirical evidence showing that no President in modern American history has inspired more hatred and cruelty than Donald Trump. This led directly to more hate crimes. The article also relies on the intelligence assessments of the entire intelligence community and the Department of Defense regarding the threat to national security. The article seeks to articulate legal limits on the political use of hate speech which undermines the general welfare and domestic tranquility, and threatens the common defense. First, it argues that impeachment can set an important precedent against political hate speech and the promotion of civil war in furtherance of the intent of foreign powers. Second, the Court needs to impound potential national security concerns and racial hate crimes into its approach to hate speech regulation. Third, the Court needs to rethink its approach to the festering American racial hierarchy which now operates as an open wound and national security threat. That hierarchy must meet its demise, and law must take the lead in undoing the legal handiwork that led to the hierarchy. As more Americans suffer from this hierarchy the more costly the hierarchy becomes. In sum, the legal system and the Court should respond as in the past, to preserve the national security of the United States. Otherwise, the Supreme Court will weaken the U.S. It will permit increasing domestic violence to fracture the United States and morph into a major geopolitical defeat of the United States.

I first presented this article at the LatCrit Conference sponsored by Georgia State University College of Law in October of 2019. It went to the printer in the early summer of 2020. Since then more evidence in support of my thesis emerged.

First, Congressman Seth Moulton, at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, asked Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "You clearly recognize the value of unity not just in our military but in our country. Do you believe that other countries our various adversaries around the world are interested in taking advantage of divisions and unrest in our country?" Gen. Milley responded:

"I not only believe that they would, I know that they are." The highest ranking officer in the U.S. military added that: "I have no doubt in my mind that foreign adversarial countries are trying to take advantage of civil unrest in the United States." (at 1:25:20 of the video). 

Second, former Trump Administration Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, stated that "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us." Writing in the immediate aftermath of the George Floyd police brutality, he added: "We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership,” and that he "watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled." 

This perfectly supports my thesis: Trump's politics of racial division weakness us and lends aid and comfort to our enemies. That thesis enjoys abundant support in the article itself including from the entire United States Intelligence Community (see footnote 19) as well as the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee (see footnote 16). Each found that Russia seeks to incite civil war and unrest by inflaming racial divisions.

Trump's politics and rhetoric of racial division present an unprecedented threat to the domestic tranquility and national defense of the United States as already manifest in the surge in hate crimes closely associated with the rise of Trump. His own military experts identify the same national security threat from Trump's divisiveness.

A second Trump term will certainly mean a more violent, more divided and weaker America just as Vladimir Putin intends. In the words of NBC News: Russian Documents Reveal Desire to Sow Racial Discord--and Violence--in the U.S. 

America must take a unified stand against Putin's efforts to incite hate and crush his hopes for an American bloodbath.