Renowned History Professor At UNC Charlotte Says January 6th Was An Assault On The Constitution
David Goldfield, the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at UNC Charlotte, and author of 16 books, two that were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in History, comparing Watergate 1974 with the January 6 Riots in an Inside UNC Charlotte interview said, “It’s important to note that each of these incidents is a different type of assault on the U.S. Constitution and the democratic process of government enshrined in that document. The Watergate hearings underscored that the U.S. system of government was robust and protected the American people from a president’s autocratic tendencies. A sitting president had attempted to secure information about an opposition leader and his party to gain advantage in an upcoming presidential election. The real damage to democracy, however, was the cover-up: the design of the Nixon administration to deny involvement in the crime. While we are still awaiting the final outcome of the January 6 hearings, the proceedings are investigating a president’s possible role in an attempt to threaten the roots of American constitutional democracy, specifically, the peaceful transfer of power after an election. Comparisons with Watergate, while valuable in providing a context for the current crisis, should not obscure the fact that the two events are not merely differences in degree, but, rather, differences in kind. The threat to our democratic institutions and, particularly, on the democratic process going forward remain.”