Curbing gets modeled, obliterating rule of law globally---extinction.

Like Adams, George Washington - the first President of the United States - embraced the notion of a government of laws. In September 1789, not long after the U.S. Constitution's ratification, 147Washington wrote a telling letter to Pennsylvania's legislature. 148"It should be the highest ambition of every American," he wrote, "to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." To obtain that end, "to establish the government of laws," he observed, "the union of these States is absolutely necessary." As Washington's letter emphasized:

In every proceeding, this great, this important object should ever be kept in view; and so long as our measures tend to this; and are marked with the wisdom of a well informed and enlightened people, we may reasonably hope, under the smiles of Heaven, to convince the world that the happiness of nations can be accomplished by pacific revolutions in their political systems, without the destructive intervention of the sword. 149

Also referring to the government of laws concept in another letter written shortly thereafter to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, a prominent English historian known for her eight-volume The History of England from the Accession of James I to the Revolution, 150George Washington - on the Fourth of July in 1793, having just taken the presidential oath of office for a second time a few months earlier - likewise wrote to the residents of Alexandria, Virginia:

To complete the American character, it remains for the citizens of the United States to shew to the world, that the reproach heretofore cast on republican Governments for their want of stability, is without foundation, when that government is the deliberate choice of an enlightened people. And I am fully persuaded, that every well-wisher to the happiness and prosperity of this country will evince by his conduct that we live under a government of laws ... . 151

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Washington - like other founders - thus had an abiding commitment to the Rule of Law as he understood it, 152though he, too, failed to live up to its promise as he, among other things, kept people enslaved at his Mount Vernon plantation throughout his life. 153In his will, George Washington (1732-1799) - the military leader turned President and statesman - only agreed to emancipate those he held in human bondage upon the death of his wife, Martha Washington (1731-1802). 154 The government-of-laws idea was repeated by other early Americans, 155including Thomas Jefferson, 156John Quincy Adams, 157Alexander Hamilton, 158and the members of the U.S. Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison. 159John Adams, the idea's most famous proponent in America, himself incorporated the concept into the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, 160the written instrument 161that is one of the world's oldest, continuously existing constitutions. 162And he, like so many others, 163would continue to speak of a "government of laws" in the years and decades to come. 164The concept would show up in everything from newspaper articles 165to grand jury instructions delivered by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, 166the second governor of New York, a former U.S. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and the author of some of The Federalist Papers. 167 The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 contains a detailed declaration of rights and lays out the framework for the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Among other things, its declaration of rights recites that "all men are born free and equal, have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights"; "the people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State"; "Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class men"; "all elections ought to be free"; "every individual ... has a right to be protected ... in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws"; "every subject of the commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property, or character"; "he ought to obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to purchase it; completely, and without any denial; promptly, and without delay, conformably to the laws"; and "laws made to punish for actions done before the existence of such laws, and which have not been declared crimes by preceding laws, are unjust, oppressive, and inconsistent with the fundamental principles of a free government." 168Article XXIX of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 further declared: It is essential to the preservation of the rights of every individual, his life, liberty, property, and character, that there be an impartial interpretation of the laws, and administration of justice. It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial, and independent as the lot of humanity will admit. 169 V. From the Enlightenment to Modern Conceptions of the Rule of Law The Enlightenment - and prominent writers of that era, from Montesquieu and Rousseau to Beccaria and Voltaire to Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft - ushered in a new way of thinking about the Rule of Law and human rights. 170The seventeenth-century's Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, 171in which King James II was forced to abdicate the throne, led to the English Bill of Rights (1689), 172which, in turn, served as a model for the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), 173other early American declarations of rights and state constitutions, 174and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791). 175The revolutionary state constitutions guaranteed a host of individual rights, including in the arenas of public affairs and the criminal law, 176with the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights doing the same after its ratification. 177"The American Revolution was creative and significant," Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood has written, "because of the revolutionary state constitutions that preceded the Constitution by more than a decade." 178"Not only did the formation of the new state constitutions in 1776," he observed in 1993, "establish the basic structures of our political institution, their creation also brought forth the primacy conceptions of America's political and constitutional culture that have persisted to the present." 179 Because they lived more than 200 years ago, Enlightenment-era figures were not necessarily enlightened by modern standards, with a number of America's own founders actually buying and selling and enslaving human beings throughout their lives, 180a total affront to the modern-day conception of the Rule of Law. 181But Enlightenment thinkers did wrestle, in their own time and in their own ways, with critically important subjects such as how to frame and organize a government to prevent abuses of power - and how to protect individual rights (at least in ways that they, then, thought of human rights and the social compact). The Enlightenment - also known as the Age of Reason - has been variously defined as the eighteenth-century philosophy 182"emphasizing reason and individualism over tradition" 183and "rational scientific inquiry, humanitarian tolerance, and the idea of universal human rights"; 184as "the search for "freedom' and "progress' achieved by a critical use of reason to change man's relationship with himself and society"; 185and as "a period during which superstition and ignorance receded in the face of an evolving body of scientific knowledge that gave order and harmony to a universe that could now be explained in the light of reason and rules." 186America's "Framers and Founders," it has been noted, "were the products of that period, and for many of them science and scientific ways of thinking were defining characteristics." 187 The figures of the Enlightenment were oftentimes deeply flawed, even resorting to extreme violence and brutality against enslaved persons. 188Their ideas on topics such as the division of powers and the importance of an independent judiciary, though, continue to shape the modern world. 189James Madison, the Virginia slave owner who played a major role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, 190called Montesquieu - the French jurist who protested against torture 191but who nonetheless approved torturous punishments as part of his work within France's civil law system 192- "the oracle who is always consulted and cited" on separation of powers. 193Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Genevan philosopher, gained much celebrity for writing about the social contract, 194although his conception of equality did not include equal rights for women. 195Beccaria - an aristocrat from Milan who, in his mid-20s, wrote about the dividing line between liberty and tyranny 196and explored the contours and subject of the criminal law - advocated for proportionate punishments, a scale of crimes and punishments, and the abolition of both torture and the death penalty 197even though his publicly offered alternative to executions - "perpetual slavery" 198- is one rightfully shunned by modern-day lawmakers. 199Voltaire, Jefferson, Madison and others championed freedom of expression, religious toleration, and a separation of church and state, 200 but sadly, slavery, overt gender discrimination, other forms of extreme prejudice, and virulent anti-Semitism stubbornly persisted. 201 At a time when women were systematically denied the right to vote and to participate in public life (e.g., as lawyers, judges or jurors), 202Mary Wollstonecraft - a talented English writer whose second daughter, the novelist Mary Shelley, famously wrote Frankenstein (1818) - called for the education of women and gender equality in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). 203Her French counterpart, Olympe de Gouges - a playwright executed by guillotine in 1793 during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror 204- published her own Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791) shortly after France's National Constituent Assembly issued its Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789). 205"By moving from the masculine language of the "rights of men' to a specifically feminine pronoun," historian Eileen Hunt Botting writes, "Wollstonecraft underscored the special and urgent need for civic recognition of women's human rights, especially to education." "Using a similar rhetorical technique," Botting observes, "de Gouges's 1791 Parisian pamphlet "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen' uncovered the patriarchal bias of the 1789 Declaration, by rewriting the list of French republican rights with the female sex included." 206 Words, with all their nuance of meaning, played a critical role in eighteenth-century debates and political discourse. 207During the Enlightenment, the law's language, as expressed in bills of rights, constitutions and legal codes, came to be seen as an indispensable tool for protecting people's natural and human rights. 208Clarity in drafting constitutions and laws came to be highly valued, 209with lawmakers insisting - in what has come to be known as the principle of legality 210- that citizens be given advance notice of the laws. 211In Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), translated into French by economist and philosophe Andre Morellet and then into English as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1767), 212Beccaria specifically took up the topics of lawmaking and interpretation of the laws. 213"Where the laws are clear and precise," Beccaria observed, "the judge's task is merely to discover the facts." 214 Judges, he wrote, "should reason syllogistically" from a law's text, 215warning about the adverse implications of the "common axiom" that " the spirit of the laws is to be considered." 216In an era still peppered with capital and corporal punishments and sentences of exile, slavery or "penal servitude" for life, 217Beccaria emphasized: "it is the greatest of evils if the laws be written in a language which is not understood by the people and which makes them dependent upon a few individuals because they cannot judge for themselves what will become of their freedom or their life and limbs." 218 In his own time, Beccaria was celebrated as the first Enlightenment writer to make a comprehensive case against capital punishment, 219and his book was read and cited by an array of European and American lawmakers. 220"The more people understand the sacred code of the laws and get used to handling it, the fewer will be the crimes," Beccaria observed. 221With the fourth chapter of Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments devoted to the interpretation of the laws, one modern translator of the book observes that the whole chapter was "a reaction against the unbridled judicial discretion characteristic of Beccaria's day." 222The English physician and philosopher John Locke had, in his own time, warned against "arbitrary power" and "absolute arbitrary power, of governing without settled standing laws," contending that "the liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the common-wealth." 223" Wherever law ends, tyranny begins," Locke wrote. 224Beccaria, like Locke and others, opposed tyrannical practices, and America's founders similarly railed against arbitrary government, 225embracing the use of written constitutions to protect delineated rights. 226In addition to On Crimes and Punishments, Beccaria also published Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile ( Research on the Nature of Style, 1770), which itself focused on the use and nuance of language. 227 Beccaria's writings - on tyranny, the need for penal reform, and interpretation of the laws - had a major influence throughout Europe and the Americas. 228For example, Thomas Jefferson expressed the view, in line with Beccaria's, that punishments should be "proportionate" and "mild" and that judges, in doing their work, should closely adhere to the text of laws as written by legislators. 229As Jefferson once said: "Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine." 230Jefferson copied multiple passages from Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments into his commonplace book in the original Italian, 231taking note of Beccaria's cautionary warning about judicial discretion: " si apre la porta all'incertezza," the door is opened to uncertainty. 232As Beccaria, wanting more certainty and less severity and discretion in the law's application, himself wrote: Each man has his point of view, each man in different times has a different one. The spirit of the law would thus be the result of good, or wicked logic of a judge of an easy, or indisposed digestion; it would depend on the violence of his passions, of the infirmity of which he suffers. 233 In a passage of Beccaria's book that John Adams would copy by hand from the original Italian text, Beccaria had observed of the impulse that led to so many abuses of power: " Ogni uomo si fa centro di tutte le combinazioni del globo." The translation: "Every man makes himself the center of his whole world." 234 In accord with the notion that people must be given notice of a penal law before its application, the U.S. Constitution expressly abolished ex post facto laws - laws passed after the commission of an act that retrospectively changed its legal consequences. 235The Constitution also explicitly outlawed bills of attainder, legislative acts whereby one or more persons were declared to be attainted, to have their property confiscated, and to be sentenced to death without a judicial trial. 236In The Federalist No. 44, signed "Publius," James Madison wrote: Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. The two former are expressly prohibited by the declarations prefixed to some of the State constitutions, and all of them are prohibited by the spirit and scope of these fundamental charters. Our own experience has taught us, nevertheless, that additional fences against these dangers ought not to be omitted. 237 In The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton - also writing as "Publius" - had this to say about those legal protections: "The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like." 238As Hamilton stressed: Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing. 239 VI. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Equal Protection of the Laws Today, the Rule of Law - as a concept - is as important as it was after World War II, when war, genocide, and countless Nazi atrocities led to the creation of the United Nations in 1945 240and the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). 241The Universal Declaration, the work product of John Peters Humphrey, Rene Cassin, Eleanor Roosevelt, 242and many others from delegations around the world, 243explicitly tied the Rule of Law to the protection of universal human rights, 244declaring in its preamble that "it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law." 245The concept of the Rule of Law - as one source notes - thus played a "central role" in the Universal Declaration's genesis, with Sir Hersch Lauterpacht - a prominent British lawyer who served on the International Court of Justice 246- writing in 1950 that "the most effective way of giving reality to it is through the normal activity of national courts and other organs applying the law of the land." 247In short, the stronger a society's Rule of Law tradition and ethic, the better human rights will be protected. The Universal Declaration was a major advance in legal thought because lawmakers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - and, it must be said, for so many who came thereafter - abjectly failed to address the scourges of slavery and racism, misogyny and sexism, and homophobia and xenophobia. 248That failure, which denied equality to all, has necessitated the human rights advocacy of scores of pioneering leaders to rectify and remedy the prejudices and errors of the past. Change may be inevitable, but only through determination, grit, and collective action does lasting, positive change come. As anthropologist Margaret Mead is widely reported to have once expressed her belief in the potential for human beings to bring about constructive change: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." 249 Over the centuries, many such civic and political leaders have tirelessly fought for different causes. William Wilberforce, 250Frederick Douglass, 251Sojourner Truth, 252and Harriet Tubman 253fought against slavery. Charles Hamilton Houston, 254Thurgood Marshall, 255Martin Luther King Jr., 256Claudette Colvin, 257Rosa Parks, 258John Lewis, 259and many others fought for civil rights and racial equality. 260Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 261Susan B. Anthony, 262Jane Addams, 263Ida B. Wells, 264Maud Malone 265and countless other suffragists fought for the right to vote. 266And other women's rights activists, from Margaret Sanger 267and Mary McLeod Bethune 268to Sandra Day O'Connor 269and Ruth Bader Ginsburg 270also pioneered women's rights and the law and the legal profession. 271 There have likewise been LGBTQ+ pioneers such as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs 272and Barbara Gittings; 273those, like Cesar Chavez, 274who fought for the rights of immigrants and migrant workers; 275and advocates for people with disabilities such as Edward Miner Gallaudet, 276Patrisha Wright, 277and Paula Goldberg. 278And in the anti-death penalty arena, which has occupied so much of my own scholarly agenda, 279there were early anti-gallows campaigners such as Benjamin Rush, 280Edward Livingston, 281Robert Rantoul Jr., 282and Marvin Bovee, 283and - in modern times - prominent figures like Anthony Amsterdam, 284Bryan Stevenson, 285Stephen Bright, 286Robert Badinter, 287Diann Rust-Tierney, 288and Sister Helen Prejean. 289Of course, through the centuries scores of other activists, civic leaders, and human rights defenders have participated in social movements and civil rights and environmental justice campaigns to address gross violations of human rights. 290 Ironically, in the political context, the American revolutionaries who fought for liberty and independence from England's monarchy themselves denied liberty - en masse, to borrow a French term 291- to minorities and women. Early American presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, among them - kept scores of people in human bondage, including while they served as head of state. 292Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence (1776), declaring "that all Men are created equal," 293but - in the hypocrisy of hypocrisies - during his lifetime he kept more than six hundred human beings enslaved at Monticello, his Virginia plantation, and in his fields or mills or at his nailery. 294The U.S. Constitution, drafted in Philadelphia and ratified in 1788, 295itself prohibited the slave trade's abolition until 1808, 296with Jefferson and Monroe exchanging letters - in the wake of Gabriel's Rebellion (1800), in which enslaved people in Virginia sought their freedom 297- about how to punish those who participated in it. The principal subject of their exchange: about the use of capital punishment and whether or not "to stay the hand of the executioner." 298Slavery itself was not abolished in the U.S. until December 6, 1865, 299after the Civil War had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives 300and John Wilkes Booth, a white supremacist, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. 301 In early America, women and Native Americans were likewise systematically subjugated and oppressed. In a 1776 letter, Abigail Adams - the wife of the prominent Massachusetts lawyer who would later become America's second president - had implored her husband, John Adams, to "Remember the Ladies." 302But America's founders utterly failed to do so, 303even though some from that era (and others prior to their time) 304had advocated for the recognition of women's rights. 305Women were not guaranteed the right to vote until much later - in the case of federal elections, not until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. 306Also, a large number of Native Americans were killed ( e.g., in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862, a mass hanging took the lives of thirty-eight Dakota Indians), 307and they were driven off and exiled from their ancestral lands, 308with treaties - the foundation of dealings between sovereign peoples 309- frequently broken. 310President Andrew Jackson signed the so-called Indian Removal Act into law in 1830, 311with modern-day scholars documenting what has been called the unprecedented "state-administered mass expulsion of indigenous people." 312 In 1868, the ratification of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment enshrined the concept of "equal protection of the laws" into the nation's fabric of life. 313That constitutional amendment was, unfortunately, not immediately read to protect the rights of those it was intended to protect. 314But gradually, through the application of the U.S. Supreme Court's "selective incorporation" doctrine, constitutional protections in the U.S. Bill of Rights have been interpreted by the courts and applied to the states in a transformative way. 315In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantee has been applied to protect people's rights ( e.g., in the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in United States v. Virginia 316and Obergefell v. Hodges, 317protecting women's rights and guaranteeing marriage equality, respectively). There are, of course, international covenants and multiple U.N. conventions that outlaw discrimination and that recognize the importance of equality and equal treatment under the law. 318 VII. Tyrannical Rule and Abuses of Power vs. the Rule of Law It is clear that those in power have - and frequently do - abuse their power. That was certainly true of ancient Rome and Roman emperors, with condemned criminals crucified, clubbed to death, burned alive, fed to wild animals, thrown from the Tarpeian Cliff, or bound in leather sacks with live animals and tossed into bodies of water. 319"In the Colosseum," one historian notes of ancient Rome's famous amphitheater, "a whole series of elaborate executions were staged" in "the guise of certain Greek dramas, whose subject matter entailed the deaths of the actors." 320The "actors" were, in actuality, condemned criminals "dressed up as characters from Greek mythology" who "were forced to perform and, at the performance's climax, were put to death" using "collapsible scaffolds placed above cages of wild beasts." 321Rome's Colosseum could hold tens of thousands of spectators, 322and it was the sight of innumerable public executions - ones carried out in a gruesome fashion through a variety of means, 323including burning alive and damnatio ad bestias, "condemnation to the beasts." 324Humiliation and mocking of the offender were a regular part of such horrific Roman public spectacles. 325 Other political leaders, from Robespierre 326and Napoleon in France, 327to those involved in the Armenian genocide, 328to Joseph Stalin of Soviet Union 329and Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, 330to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia 331and Saddam Hussain's regime in Iraq, 332have engaged in the most grotesque atrocities and abuses of power. Torture has been employed for centuries, 333with techniques including waterboarding, 334the rack, 335and the thumbscrew. 336Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, performed horrific medical experiments on Jews and Gypsies at Auschwitz, 337and innumerable state-sanctioned and summary executions have been carried out over the centuries. 338There have been more than 15,000 executions on American soil, 339and the Equal Justice Initiative has meticulously documented more than 4,000 extra-judicial, racial terror lynchings. 340Many of those lynchings were never properly investigated by governmental officials, with perpetrators thereby evading justice and leading to reports that the acts had been committed "at the hands of persons unknown." 341In addition, civil rights leaders have been surveilled, 342jailed, 343and beaten up 344- even killed 345- for their efforts to fight inequality and social and racial injustices. 346 In the twenty-first century, abuses of power continue. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has ordered public executions by firing squad, 347even reportedly using anti-aircraft guns to put people to death. 348Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin, and its allies have repeatedly resorted to disinformation campaigns, 349poisoning, 350and extrajudicial killing of political opponents and those in exile, 351while officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where amputations, beheadings, eye gougings, floggings, and stonings still take place, 352 notoriously ordered and carried out the killing and dismemberment of dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 353Syria's regime, led by a brutal tyrant, Bashar al-Assad, the son of another tyrannical ruler, Hafez al-Assad, 354resorted - like his father before him - to the use of chemical weapons, 355also ordering the bombing and killing of civilians, including scores of children, throughout the country's ongoing, ten-year-long civil war. 356Dictators and authoritarian regimes across the globe, in fact, have systematically violated people's rights ( e.g., North Korea's use of torture and forced labor camps, 357the Chinese crackdown on dissenters in Hong Kong, and the Russian Federation's complicity in shooting down a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over Ukraine killing 298 passengers and crew). 358 Abuses of power and failures to promote and respect human rights take many forms. Former President Donald Trump, for example, repeatedly thumbed his nose at the Rule of Law, 359continually glorified violence, 360embraced authoritarian and totalitarian leaders, 361regularly attacked and tried to intimidate journalists and federal judges, 362routinely spoke of accurate reporting as "fake news," 363and grossly abused human rights throughout his presidency. 364His repeated lies and misrepresentations are well documented, 365prompting one journalist, S.V. Date, to pointedly ask President Trump at a White House press briefing in August of 2020: "Mr. President, after three and a half years, do you regret at all, all the lying you've done to the American people?" 366"As long as the president embraces autocrats and dictators, expressing envy of their ability to silence or compromise the democratically essential checks and balances on their authority," Kenneth Roth, the Human Rights Watch executive director, testified about Donald Trump on January 10, 2020 before the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights, "the US government will have little credibility on human rights." 367 Donald Trump's repeated abuses of power included soliciting foreign interference in a U.S. presidential election, 368separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, 369keeping immigrant kids in cages, 370using the executive clemency power to pardon friends, political cronies and even war crimes, 371inciting and exalting violence, 372and misleading the American people about the true nature and danger of the COVID-19 pandemic, 373thus exponentially increasing sickness and death. 374In recounting a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump told Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward on February 7, 2020, that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your, you know, your - even your strenuous flus." "This is deadly stuff," Trump said at the time. 375Yet, Trump deliberately chose to downplay the seriousness of the virus. 376As Trump told Woodward on March 19, 2020: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down." 377 Indeed, Trump inexplicably chose as a coronavirus advisor Dr. Scott Atlas, who - unlike renowned expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 378- had no background in epidemiology or infectious diseases. 379A group of Stanford University faculty members specifically rebuked Dr. Atlas because, through his statements, he "undermined and threatened public health even as countless lives have been lost." 380Trump himself put his own Secret Service agents and staff at risk, including by taking a "joyride" outside of Walter Reed, after contracting the coronavirus and while still infectious. 381By December 2020, COVID-19 had killed more than 300,000 people in the United States, 382with hospital intensive care units around the country reaching or at their capacities. 383And in the wake of the rioting at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, the U.S. recorded more than 4,000 dead in a single day on January 7, 2021, bringing the total COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. to more than 365,000 people as of that date. 384Tragically, COVID-19 deaths crossed the 500,000 mark in February 2021, and they continue to climb. 385 In addition, Donald Trump and his administration funneled taxpayer dollars to Trump-related businesses or entities, 386made a plethora of other unethical decisions, 387ordered the resumption of federal executions 388in the midst of a national and global trend to abandon capital punishment, 389and even resorted to attacking and undermining the mission of the U.S. Postal Service, intentionally slowing down the transport of the U.S. mail (thus causing delays in the delivery of ballots and life-saving medications) in the lead up to the presidential election. 390The Trump Administration went so far as to remove postboxes shortly before the November 2020 election, 391all in a blatant attempt to curtail voting by mail. 392 After losing the election, Donald Trump then blatantly lied about the election results as the Trump legal team made fatally flawed and frivolous arguments in court. 393With Trump's lawyers outrageously targeting counties with large minority populations 394and even promoting groundless, evidence-free conspiracy theories, Trump and his allies attempted to disenfranchise millions of American voters in an effort to overturn the election results. 395"Voters, not lawyers, choose the President," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in one case rejecting a Trump campaign lawsuit. 396Trump's efforts to hold onto power at all costs were aimed at undermining democratic norms and institutions, with Donald Trump's legal challenges to the election continuing long after his loss. 397One editorial in The Irish Times took stock of the "fragility" of American democracy after the mob had stormed the U.S. Capitol, but also, in the wake of the election of two Democratic U.S. senators in the run-off elections in the State of Georgia, saw "a more positive lesson: when democracy is fully mobilized, its enemies cannot win." 398 Donald Trump's frequently conspiratorial, false, dehumanizing and demeaning Tweets and rhetoric, whether directed at women, minorities, immigrants, journalists, people with disabilities, or political adversaries were offensive and disgraceful, taking political behavior - including online activity - to new lows, 399even prompting the social media companies to suspend Donald Trump's accounts. 400Not only did then- President Trump fail to attempt to quell or immediately condemn the rioting and violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 that he himself had plainly inspired with his baseless invective and rhetoric and his refusal to concede an election he lost, 401but the Trump Administration's rush to execute so many death row inmates, including during the COVID-19 pandemic and the lame-duck period after the November 2020 election, illustrates what has been aptly called an almost "insatiable appetite for cruelty." 402 Abuses of power, of course, are nothing new. 403Throughout human history, the rich have exploited the poor, 404and the powerful have preyed upon the vulnerable. 405The grotesque ideology of white supremacy, in fact, has centuries' old origins, 406and it has raised its ugly head throughout world history, 407including in Nazi Germany 408and South Africa's apartheid era, 409with neo-Nazis and hate groups continuing to spew hatred and trying to sew division and social discord. 410In the U.S., after deadly violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, at a "Unite the Right" rally with white supremacists carrying torches, President Trump infamously declared that "there is blame on both sides." 411 Those in power sometimes try to desperately cling to that power, with now former President Trump, who reportedly heard arguments in the Oval Office about the possibility of invoking martial law to stay in office, 412being Exhibit A. Power-thirsty individuals who do not respect democratic norms will employ any means, however manipulative or nefarious in nature, to try to get what they want, including disinformation, violence and intimidation, and disenfranchising voters. 413Using Dark Money, 414gerrymandering, 415and voter suppression 416targeted at racial minorities, 417they try to pick their voters, rather than allowing all eligible voters with easy access to ballot boxes to pick their elected leaders. 418"I felt a growing sadness as I listened to a recording of Donald Trump begging, bullying, cajoling, and threatening Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an attempt to make him do something he can't - overturn Trump's loss in the presidential race," Solomon Jones wrote in an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 419 VIII. The Rule of Law's Importance to Safeguarding Civil Liberties and Human Rights

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As history shows, shockingly horrific - even genocidal - consequences can flow from a societal breakdown of the Rule of Law. 420 Just consider Nazi Germany and The Holocaust, 421 the Rwandan genocide, 422 "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 423 and all of the atrocities committed by the regimes in Turkey, Syrian and Iran. 424 In sharp contrast, the ideal of the Rule of Law, one articulated long ago, is that everyone will be treated fairly and equally by the law. 425 A Rule of Law system puts people front and center in their own governance, divides power to prevent its abuse, 426 insists on equal application of the laws, and requires an independent judiciary and skilled lawyers 427 to vigilantly safeguard individual rights. 428Before the onset of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the Continental Congress, in 1774, drew particular inspiration from Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments - a book that opposed tyrannical practices - in articulating a core principle of the Enlightenment and of the American Revolution. 429As the Continental Congress wrote that year in a letter to the inhabitants of Quebec:

"In every human Society,' says the celebrated Marquis Beccaria, following the steps of the immortal Montesquieu in impressing sentiments of Humanity, "there is an Effort continually tending to confer on one Part the height of Power and Happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of Weakness & Misery. The intent of good Laws, is to oppose this Effort, and to diffuse their Influence, universally, & equally.' 430

When corrupt politicians such as Donald Trump repeatedly lie, ignore or brazenly violate laws and norms, refuse to comply with subpoenas, excoriate journalists and judges to deflect their own wrongdoing, use hate speech and racially charged rhetoric, employ division and disinformation to manipulate, and seek to enrich themselves at the taxpayers' expense, the Rule of Law is eroded and undermined, 431especially if there are no immediate consequences - or plainly insufficient pushback - for such behavior and misconduct. And that is the case even though the long-standing principle that "no one is above the law" might be occasionally invoked, whether rhetorically or by the courts, 432when it appears to the general public that nothing concrete is, in actuality, ever done to check the misconduct, illegality, or abuses of power. As Joyce Vance, a law professor at the University of Alabama and a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, put it nicely: "Accountability is essential to our system of government. The Founding Fathers created checks and balances to keep any one branch from growing too powerful." 433

In today's world, there are many pressing problems that need to be addressed, including global warming and the climate crisis, 434 poverty and hunger, 435 a lack of affordable health care, 436 discrimination 437 and unemployment, 438 pollution 439 and habitat destruction, 440 <<FOOTNOTE 440 BEGINS>> Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Law and Justice around the World: A Comparative Approach 307 (2020) ("Overfishing, habitat destruction, and other human activities are leading to the mass extinction of species."). <<FOOTNOTE 440 ENDS>> the plight of tens of millions of refugees and forcibly displaced persons, 441 hate crimes and the use of excessive force, 442 and matters of peace and international security. 443 Consequently, respect for the Rule of Law must be restored post-haste in the post-Trump presidency, and there must be a much-needed renewal - indeed, an amplification - of the commitment to further it. The global future of the Rule of Law, in fact, must concentrate on better protecting human rights, 444combatting corruption, 445eliminating poverty and hunger, 446reducing disease and other forms of human suffering, 447funding and fostering legal aid services 448and an independent judiciary, 449 <<FOOTNOTE 449 BEGINS>> 449 Sellers, An Introduction to the Rule of Law in Comparative Perspective, supra note 80, at 5 ("The first necessary and inescapable desideratum of the rule of law is an independent judiciary. Judges must be secure and well-paid, so that they can apply the law without fear or favor."); id. at 8-9 (""Rule of law' states finally come into being with the emergence of constitutional government, provided that the constitution seeks justice and the common good through the checks and balances of divided governmental power, under the ultimate review of independent judges."). <<FOOTNOTE 449 ENDS>> and bringing more equality and human dignity to the world's diverse societies. 450