‘He chose not to act’

Of all the explosive evidence that came out of last night’s Jan. 6 hearing, one detail stood out to me: members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s security staff feared for their own safety. As insurrectionists breached the Capitol and flooded its halls, these seasoned Secret Service agents were calling their families to say goodbye, uncertain whether they would escape with their lives. And what was the President of the United States—the man who incited this domestic terror attack—doing? Calmly watching it unfold on TV in his stately dining room. The gravity cannot be overstated. On September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush was blasted for waiting seven minutes to respond to the terror attacks in New York City. On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump waited 26 times that long when it was in his power to call off the violence he himself had provoked. It's an unforgivable dereliction of duty. —Miles Taylor, Executive Director, Renew America Movement

Ed. Note: The Topline will be on a midsummer hiatus next week. We'll return on Tuesday, Aug. 2. See you then!

• Steve Bannon convicted of contempt charges in Jan. 6 case —Associated Press

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• U.S. Supreme Court declines to allow Biden's shift on immigration enforcement —Reuters

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• Congressmen request investigation into Greitens’ ‘RINO hunting’ ad —The Kansas City Star

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• Ex-officer Thomas Lane sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating George Floyd's civil rights —Star Tribune

• Ukraine, Russia sign deal to reopen grain export ports as war rages on —Reuters

‘I don’t want to say the election is over’

That’s what Donald Trump was heard to say in a previously unaired outtake of a Jan. 7, 2021, address to the nation. The clip was aired last night at the prime-time hearing of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. And it pretty much sums up why Trump did nothing to stop the violence that unfolded at the Capitol that day. Renewer Rep. Elaine Luria and the panel documented how for 187 minutes—from the time Trump left a rally stage sending his supporters to the Capitol, to the time he ultimately appeared in a lackluster Rose Garden video asking the rioters to go home—nothing could compel the ex-president to act. Instead, he watched the violence unfold on TV, tweeted, and called several Republican senators to encourage them to delay the certification of the election. “President Trump didn’t fail to act,” said committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger. “He chose not to act.”

• “Pouring gasoline on the fire.” That's how witnesses Matthew Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser, and Sarah Matthews, a White House communications staffer, described Trump’s tweets on Jan. 6, which expressed affection for the rioters and doubled down on his election lies. “I thought that Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history,” Matthews told the panel. Both she and Pottinger resigned that evening. —Associated Press

• No one could believe it. The hearing also featured clips of several witnesses testifying both to the efforts of those around the former president to get him to do something about the riot, and to Trump’s insistence that nothing should be done. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was one of those witnesses. “You’re the commander-in-chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America,” Milley said. “And there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” —Rolling Stone

• Jogging Josh. Another lowlight of the hearing was footage that showed Sen. Josh Hawley, a fierce Trump supporter who voted against certifying the election results, fleeing rioters on Jan. 6. He can be seen running through a hallway in the Capitol and then quickly making his way down a staircase with colleagues. The video, which lit up social media shortly after it was aired, was particularly damning, as it was taken just hours after Hawley was photographed raising his fist in solidarity with protesters—from a safe location behind Capitol security gates. —NBC News

MORE: NYT Opinion: We are retired generals and admirals. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were a dereliction of duty —The New York Times

Drochon: Conspiracy theories can lead to violence

“The assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 shows what can happen when politicians like Trump promote exclusion, suggest violence, use inflamed rhetoric, look down on people, and refuse to consider the possibility that their own ideas might be wrong. Repeating this Trumpian formula only invites more political violence, though with even less excuse now that Jan. 6 has demonstrated where this political strategy can lead. If, on the other hand, our elites begin to consider it their social duty to resist this polarizing, galvanizing rhetoric and behavior, they might create an environment less amenable to conspiracy theories in the first place.” —Hugo Drochon in The UnPopulist

Hugo Drochon is an assistant professor of political theory at the University of Nottingham and the author of “Nietzsche's Great Politics” and other works on democratic theory, liberalism, and conspiracy theories.

MORE: David Leonhardt: Why election conspiracy theories have become central to the Republican Party —The New York Times

Klaas: It’s not hyperbole. Authoritarianism is a legit threat

“We may not be doomed. But we should be honest: The optimistic assessment from experts who study authoritarianism globally is that the United States will most likely settle into a dysfunctional equilibrium that mirrors a deep democratic breakdown. It’s not yet too late to avoid that. But the longer we wait, the more the cancer of authoritarianism will spread. We don’t have long before it’s inoperable.” —Brian Klaas in The Atlantic

Brian Klaas is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a global politics professor at University College London, and the author of “Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us.”

MORE: Autocracy vs. democracy after the Ukraine invasion: Mapping a middle way —Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The unending election

The fallout from the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen has been immense and continues to this day. For Donald Trump, who struggled so much to declare that the election was over on Jan. 7, 2021, it's still going on. Just this month, he called Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and urged him to decertify President Biden’s win in that state, according to Vos. “He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin,” Vos recently said in an interview. “I explained that it’s not allowed under the Constitution.” —CNBC

• Action in DC. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced two bills on Wednesday that would help prevent a repeat of Trump's failed attempt to overturn his election loss. The two bills address a range of issues, from the handling of election results and presidential transitions to mail-in ballots, election record security, and threats against election workers. The legislation also would make clear that the vice president has only a ceremonial role in certifying election results. —Reuters

• Accountability in Georgia. In Fulton County, Georgia—where a special grand jury is undertaking a criminal investigation of Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat—a judge yesterday refused to quash subpoenas for 11 fake electors identified as targets in the probe. The Georgia Republicans, who are accused of playing a role in Trump's efforts, had asked the judge to throw out the subpoenas. The Georgia case is one of the most serious facing Trump, who was recorded in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call pressuring a top state official to "find" enough votes to overturn his loss. —Reuters

• Absurdity in Arizona. The Republican Party of Arizona's executive committee has censured Rusty Bowers, the state’s speaker of the House, who appeared before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Alongside election officials from Georgia, Bowers testified publicly last month about how Trump and his allies pressured them to toss out election results from their states. Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona GOP, said Bowers is "no longer a Republican in good standing & we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary." Ridiculous. —CBS News

MORE: Arizona Senate candidate escalates election fears ahead of GOP primary —CNN

Jacobson: The trouble with gerrymandering 

“To level the mapping playing field across the nation requires federal laws to define how congressional maps should be drawn. Whether they involve independent commissions or standards defined by fairness metrics, a common set of principles must be applied so that no one party gains an advantage. Unfortunately, the very people who can put forth such legislation are also the very people who have the most to lose from it.” —Sheldon Jacobson in The Hill

Sheldon Jacobson is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the founding director of the Institute for Computational Redistricting, which provides transparent approaches for redistricting grounded in computational methods.

MORE: Gerrymandering case could 'destroy American democracy' —News @ Northeastern

Del Savio: Rising above partisanship

“Partisanship and plurality voting have made elections and attaining the majority in Congress the number one focus of our politicians. The stalemate that follows—when every bill is judged by how it will impact elections, rather than how it will impact people—means the country is hard-pressed to get the solutions we need. … When we put this tug of war between two sides in the past, we will be able to find common ground on any issue from government regulation, taxes, and wages, to foreign trade, education, and healthcare.” —Laura Del Savio on Forward Thinking

Laura Del Savio is the senior communications strategist at the Forward Party.

MORE: Some candidates count on crossover support from the other party —Deseret News

Are you passionate about democracy reform and bipartisan cooperation? If so, there may be a role for you at the Millennial Action Project. MAP’s mission is to activate young leaders to bridge the partisan divide and transform American politics. Our friends at MAP are on the lookout for a new digital manager. If that’s your wheelhouse, check out the job posting and apply to join the growing community of Americans fighting for our democracy.

When implementing ranked-choice voting, it is important to use the best method. While no voting method is perfect, the Ware method, also known as instant runoff voting, has many defects. It can even promote extremism, by eliminating moderate candidates in the first round. The election then becomes an undesirable choice between extremists.

The Condorcet method uses pairwise contests to eliminate losers. It produces three possible results: a single winner, a tie, or a Condorcet cycle of three candidates who defeat only one other candidate, which is different for each candidate. The latter two cases are then decided by tie-breakers. The ranked pairs implementation of the Condorcet method is best, in my opinion. For a detailed analysis of the ranked pairs method and practicalities, I recommend https://condorcet.ca. This website is maintained by a member of the Canadian Parliament. —Chuck C., Virginia

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.