Each of us served as attorney general of the United States, one for a Democratic president, the other for a Republican. Over the years, in the course of disputing matters of law and policy, each of us has said critical, even harsh, things about the other. Please do not conclude from our joint authorship of this article that either of us would retract or even reconsider any of those past statements.
Far from it.
Rather, we write jointly because we would like to continue to disagree the way we have in the past, the way Americans generally have in the past. That is: within a political system in which winners of elections get to execute their policies for a prescribed period, so long as those policies conform to the law. Within a system in which winners of elections do not face the threat of societal and political paralysis as they attempt to govern….
Of course, the First Amendment guarantees people the right to demonstrate their views to their fellow citizens and to try to garner support for the changes they would like to see. But it assuredly does not give them the right to use those demonstrations to impose their will on fellow citizens. It does not give them the right to act out the view that if they cannot get the political outcome they want, their fellow citizens should not be able to lead peaceful lives.ADhttps://ce5bcd08417e956e7d0f4311d8b609b2.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.htmlThis should not require saying, but we feel compelled to say it: nor should our political leaders stoke or condone violence.
It is not only violence that can undo us. Even before Election Day, disagreements about how to count votes have generated legal disputes, and of course those disputes have gone to the courts. But there is a difference between taking legal disputes to court when necessary and conducting a campaign of litigation that obstructs more than it resolves. We strongly agree that votes must be counted fairly and voices heard in a way that preserves peace and promotes confidence in our system.
Finally, there is the insidious danger posed by charges that have nothing to support them other than an accuser’s invitation to us to hallucinate evil. The widespread distrust of our institutions and processes that such rhetoric encourages can paralyze us just as surely as violence or the uncertainty generated by a torrent of litigation.