No, Democrats are not Treasonous or Un-American

On Monday, while giving a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, Donald Trump nonchalantly said:

“Even on positive news — really positive news, like that — they were like death and un-American. Un-American…somebody said treasonous. Yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

You can see the video below for more context (along with watching the Dow Jones drop 76 points in less than three minutes).

It should go without saying, of course, that Democrats, or liberals for that matter, are not treasonous for not clapping during the State of the Union. This is yet another example of populist rhetoric.

What exactly is treason? Well, according to 18 U.S. Code Section 2381:

“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason…”

“Levies war” is the caveat here — treason cannot be committed without there being a Congressional declaration of war, and that enemy being assisted. To this end, it’s not actually treason for Trump to have received aid from Russia, either knowingly or not, as we’re presently at peace with Russia. There are obvious political differences, and end goals at stake, and there are other federal laws that would be broken — but treason isn’t one of them.

By some measure, Confederate States, soldiers, and generals were treasonous. More specifically though were the infamous Copperheads who were those on the union side of things that were opposed to the war, and demanded immediate peace. Their opposition to the war was not what made them treasonous, however, or that that they published strongly critical essays about the war — it was their aid to the Confederacy. While some historians have suggested that this is not a fair criticism, the fact that they impacted the military’s capacity to grow was enough of a function to constitute treason. It’s one thing to express harsh opinions, it’s a wholly other thing to negatively impact the war effort in such a way as to functionally aid the enemy.

Another example of actual treason is Adam Pearlman, also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn, was an American citizen who converted to Islam and later went to aid al-Qaeda until his demise in 2015. Although there’s debate about whether we can wage war against a group, like al-Qaeda, as opposed to a state, and although there’s debate about drone striking someone in a state we’re not at war with — Pearlman is an example of someone committing treason. I find it difficult not to define his eleven year career aiding terrorists in opposition to the United States anything but treasonous.

That said, Trump nonchalantly agreeing that Democrats are treasonous isn’t necessarily out of line with history, or even his rhetoric and that of his base. Republicans and Democrats have been calling each other — but more often their actions and policy choices — un-American for quite sometime. I need not bore you with examples to get to this point: suggesting someone is treasonous goes all the way back to our founding.

Ron Chernow, the famed author of Alexander Hamilton, has this to say:

“Finally, no sense yet existed of a loyal opposition to the government in power. As the party spirit grew more acrimonious, Hamilton and Washington regarded much of the criticism fired at their administration as disloyal, even treasonous, in nature.” (p. 392)

One might argue that this is to be expected considering the circumstances. Not only had George Washington and the other Founding Father’s committed treason themselves by rebelling — and succeeding — against England, they found themselves in a new territory in which liberty gave rise to more of an existential crisis. Chernow points out that Hamilton engaged in ‘hyperbole’ by mistaking dissent for disloyalty, or more dramatically — as treason (p. 569). But Federalists weren’t the only ones engaging in such rhetoric, so too were the Republican’s who hurled epithets and suggesting that the Federalists were “in league with England” over differences of opinion on policy matters.

It’s probably fair to say not much has changed in the way of hurling pejoratives and epithets to a political opponent over policy differences. It’s also fair to say that circumstances are different, and that’s where it matters.

Our Founding Father’s were contending with having won a rebellion, to exercising the entrepreneurial spirit in starting a new country, independent of all other countries. Needless to say, everyone was on edge. But that was over 200 years ago, and while young by some measure in context of governments, it’s also a long time.

It’s one thing for a Democrat to say that it is “un-American” to deport people who came here as children after living here for two or three decades, or to not help the poor. It’s an entirely different thing for a sitting Republican president (or any president) to suggest that it’s treasonous to not clap at the State of the Union over positive economic indicators. This is an exercise in inflating a cult of personality, it’s populist rhetoric at the core for its function is only to divide. It’s to say that the “silent majority” has spoken, and that he, the speaker of that majority, agrees. Except, Democrats, liberals, progressives, moderates, and even right leaning Republicans by some count know that it isn’t the “silent majority” that feels this way — it’s a very vocal minority. In fact, one could make the argument that the vocal minority are akin to the Peace Democrats (i.e., Copperheads) who almost overtook the Democratic Party during the Civil War.

The point of this piece is not to normalize this behavior, as much as it is to point out that it’s nothing new to American politics, and certainly consistent with Trump as a person, as a politician, and as a president. We should not be at all eager to engage in this rhetoric. Trump may suggest that Democrats are treasonous for not inflating his ego, or for not exercising social norms and etiquette, but that doesn’t make it so. This kind of language, of course, is dangerous, and our young history has shown a tendency to treat dissent as a measure of disloyalty. Our current level of division (based on DW NOMINATE data) seems to point out that our political divides in Congress are on par to Civil War times — civilian life seems to be more moderated by, well, real life.

But take comfort in knowing that in order for Democrats to be treasonous, Trump would need Congress to first declare an act of war against a political party, an act, interestingly, that could in effect be treasonous. This is obviously absurd — just as absurd as it is to suggest that Democrats are treasonous for not clapping. While hyperbole, pejoratives, and epithets may be ingrained in American politics, let’s not fool ourselves into believing that nothing bad can come of it.