Seditionist in Hiding

By GENE NICHOL

Former governor Pat McCrory said in August that Republican US Senate candidate Ted Budd is “in hiding.” Budd refused to participate in Republican primary debates. He now appears, at long last, to have agreed to one debate with former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee — if an appropriate mutual date can ever be found. As Chris Cooper of Western Carolina put it: “Budd is running a quiet campaign, or at least as quiet as you can run in a nationally significant race when you’ve got $6 million to spend.” In his commercials, Budd doesn’t appear as a gun dealer, but a kindly paternal sort who will assure that our daughters never have to return a package of muffins to the grocery store shelf. Sweet stuff.

Budd is hoping North Carolinians have short and selective memories. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his ads make no mention of the fact that he has, since November 2020, proven to be a consistent and visible, if obsequious and servile, foot-soldier in North Carolina’s treasonous, sedition caucus. Budd has done all he can to illegally overthrow the 2020 presidential election; to unconstitutionally thwart the peaceful transfer of power; and to end our defining national commitment to government of, by and for the people. He has tried to pull off what Jefferson Davis, Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Putin couldn’t manage. He’s placed loyalty to Donald Trump over his oath of office. And he has done it all wrapped in an breathtakingly hypocritical embrace of the American flag. He is demonstrably unfit for office.

To refresh. On Dec. 11, 2020, as a sitting member of Congress, Ted Budd signed onto an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit filed in the US Supreme Court by the buffoonish Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas to overturn the presidential election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Trump-dominated Supreme Court immediately and derisively showed them the door; effectively reminding that neither a lawless AG nor a clueless congressman have the power to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters across the nation – even if Donald Trump wants them to do it.

Even more stunning, on Jan. 7, 2021, at 1:40 a.m., hours after a throng of insurrectionists defaced the US Capitol and tried to murder its defenders, Budd rose to his feet in an utterly lawless attempt to overturn the presidential election by voting to de-certify the Pennsylvania election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had just warned his fellow Republicans: “The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken, if we overrule them, it will damage our republic forever; our democracy (will) enter a death spiral.” That’s right, Mitch McConnell. Budd voted to bring the death spiral on. And then he bragged about it.

Mike Pence had a rare moment of conscience and duty. Not Ted Budd. Heavy Republican partisans, such as Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, refused to follow Trump over the cliff to destroy our centuries-old experiment in democracy. Not Budd. So terrified was he of offending the liar and thief of Mar-A-Lago that Budd preferred to ditch government by consent of the governed rather than face the venom of the defeated president. Cowardice and perfidy on stilts.

There’s no unity to be sought with those who would crush the American democracy. Meeting seditionists halfway only makes one complicit in the treachery. Congressman Budd has proven himself unfit to be trusted with moral and political authority. That won’t change. The only decent response by traitors to their oath of office is to apologize, resign, and go home. Instead, Budd seeks a promotion. North Carolina needs many things in 2022. A quiet, smiling, seditionist-in-hiding isn’t one of them.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2022

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