Kentucky political science professors join hundreds of others calling for Trump’s removal
Multiple Kentucky political science professors have publicly criticized and called for the removal of President Donald Trump after a mob of the president’s supporters overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
At least three University of Kentucky professors have joined a swath of political scientists who have signed onto an open letter calling on Vice President Mike Pence and the president’s cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment or work to remove the president via impeachment.
“Yesterday put on display, in the most cruel and gut-wrenching way, the power of rhetoric,” Annelise Russell, a professor of public policy at UK, wrote via email on Thursday on why she signed the letter. “The President’s words contributed to a violent mob that put our nation’s political institutions and policymakers in jeopardy.”
Knowing her research spoke to the violence and political fallout brought on by the breach of the Capitol, Emily Beaulieu Bacchus, another UK political science professor who signed the letter, said it felt “irresponsible” to keep that knowledge to herself.
“When you see a moment in time, where things are manifestly not good, and potentially getting worse, and you know your work can speak to that you got to do it,” Beaulieu Bacchus said.
Weary of stereotypes of professors as “liberal indoctrinators — which I find hilarious, I can’t even get my students to read the syllabus,” Beaulieu Bacchus said she’s careful not to share specific political opinions on policy matters in the classroom. She said it doesn’t matter to her what policy positions her students hold or who they support. But the current political situation has “stopped being about policy differences between Republicans and Democrats.”
“We’re at a moment where this is not about whether you want higher taxes or lower taxes. This is not about whether you want abortion to be legal or not,” Beaulieu Bacchus said. ”This is, do you want to be able to have a next election to vote in? That’s the territory we’re in.”
In an online post Thursday, Russell wrote that she interned on Capitol Hill in 2012 for CQ Roll Call, a D.C.-based media organization which closely covers congress and the White House.
“I still cannot wrap my head around yesterday, watching an insurrection debase a place that shaped the professor and person I am today,” Russell wrote on Twitter.
Beulieu Bacchus said seeing news of the Capitol breach on Wednesday in part reminded her of her own research for a book she is writing on physical political brawls — focused primarily on altercations between politicians in Taiwan and Ukraine in legislative settings. Data collected through that research, she said has shown that most people feel worse about their democracy and legislature after those incidents — except for the perpetrators of that violence. They won’t publicly condone violence, but they may assess that the democracy is working better after it.
Three professors from Centre College, two professors at Union College and at least one professor from Western Kentucky University, Murray State University, Campbellsville University and the University of Louisville signed the letter along with hundreds of other political scientists. The letter was started Wednesday by professors at Dartmouth College, Inside Higher Ed reported.
“As a political scientist, I feel a responsibility to protect democracy when it is being attacked by a president who has demonstrated nothing but contempt for elections and the democratic voice of the people,” Mark Peffley, another UK political science professor who signed the letter, wrote via email. “When the loser of an election refuses to acknowledge the certified results and incites an insurrection to intimidate members of Congress, our democracy is at serious risk of becoming a cult of personality.”
Josh Douglas, an outspoken UK professor who specializes in election law, also called on Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment and for congress to begin impeachment proceedings — a move which several top Democrats have promised to set in motion should the amendment not be used.
“Congress, after finalizing the count of the Electoral College votes, should begin impeachment proceedings immediately so that Trump can no longer tear apart the fabric of our democracy, even during his last two weeks until President-Elect Joe Biden takes office. Impeaching and convicting Trump would also make him ineligible to hold future office,” Douglas wrote in a statement on Twitter Wednesday.
UK President Eli Capilouto also released a statement on the events at the Capitol on Thursday, writing that the day “was as unsettling a day for our country as most of us can ever remember.”
“We were reminded anew that violence is never an answer to disagreement,” Capilouto said. “But as a long night began to yield to a new day, we were reminded, too, that fundamental values endure: a belief in free and fair elections, a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power, the foundational idea that the responsibilities of democratic citizenship in our society must prevail. In the successful completion of the Presidential election, we witnessed again the genius of our system of self-governance – our capacity for reflection and our commitment to continual renewal as the part of the project of building a more perfect union.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 11:06 AM.