Newsweek: School Board Fights Are a Crucial Reminder: In America, We Citizens Rule →

Serving on a school board is one of the most thankless jobs in politics. Older folks want to keep spending (and taxes) low, while parents of school age children want to spend whatever it takes to make the education excellent. And braving this divide has gotten even tougher of late, as political skirmishes have erupted at school board meetings across the country. In a few cases, citizens have even gotten violent, or made violent threats.

Such behavior is illegal and unacceptable; no public official should ever be put in physical danger. But the violent outbursts are extreme outliers. And though angry parents have recently been compared to "domestic terrorists" and the FBI has been asked to get involved, what we're actually seeing across the nation at school board meetings is a civic uprising with an important lesson about our nation—and about who's in charge.

I don't like to brag, but I hold the highest position of power in the nation. You do, too. That's because we're American citizens. No one—not a President, a Supreme Court Justice, or any member of Congress—outranks us.

It's not an academic point. A few weeks ago, a woman who identified herself as a citizen of Mexico brought to the U.S. as a child stalked U.S Senator Kyrsten Sinema into a restroom. There she demanded Sinema vote for a pathway to citizenship, claiming Sinema was "accountable" to her. That's false: American elected officials are only accountable to the citizens in the states and districts they represent. Citizenship—not just being here—is what grants us authority over our elected officials and makes them accountable to us.

Of course, it's not just America that works this way. I spent much of last year living in New Zealand. If I'd barged into their Capitol with my American accent and started bossing around the members of Parliament and telling them what policies to pass, I'd have expected to get a polite Kiwi thrashing, at least verbally.

Citizenship in a republic means we run the joint. All the suits and pantsuits on Capitol Hill and in the state capitols report directly to us.

And this is just as true for local school boards: They are elected by, and completely accountable to, the citizens in their school district.

So, when us bosses show up for a little job performance review, our employees—the school board—don't get to set the ground rules for that discussion. We do. When you see parents making demands of their school boards, that's not "domestic terrorism." It's representative democracy in action—literally.

A federal appeals court decision handed down just a few months ago squarely addresses this salient issue. The case looked at an Ohio school board policy that prohibited certain kinds of comments. The school board had prohibited anything the board considered "harassing," "antagonistic," or "irrelevant." The policy also prohibited any remarks directed toward any particular elected official. And police were authorized to use force to compel these dictates and officers. In one case, police had physically ejected a man who made remarks critical of the school board's work, though the man "spoke calmly, used measured tones, and refrained from personal attacks," according to the court's analysis after reviewing the video.

The court struck down the school board's policy as a violation of First Amendment free speech rights. And since few cases ever make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling will probably stand as the last legal word on the subject.

By invalidating the heavy-handed policy, the court held that seeking to stop citizens from criticizing elected officials is illegal viewpoint discrimination. This kind of pernicious bias, like discrimination against someone based on race or religion, is a clear-cut civil rights violation. (The court did not need to say the First Amendment does not allow citizens to threaten violence against elected officials, because that's already illegal.)

The court's ruling was clear: Parents have a constitutional right to voice their opinion at school board meetings—even angrily.

Of course, being constructive and civil has merit. But being critical and angry has its place, too. America was founded by men and women who wielded wholehearted, creative, and sustained criticism of King George III and his tirades of tyranny. The tradition of holding American elected officials accountable has continued through nearly three centuries of peaceful protests, humor, and direct action.

There is simply no constitutional right to not be offended. Even if there were, public officials—those who voluntarily run for office for the express purpose of serving us—would be relegated to the very end of the line at the complaint counter. The first shall be last, you may have heard.

So when it comes to what should be taught in the public schools that we all own and oversee, we the people have some work to do. In most cities and towns, it's time to decide whether we should keep the school board members currently on the job or fire them and hire new ones.

I'll see you at the meeting where it happens. It's not the loud one where the elected official with the gavel is in charge. It's the quiet one, on election day—where you and I are in charge.

Mark Weaver, formerly a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, is an attorney and crisis communications expert. He is the author of the book "A Wordsmith's Work." Follow him on Twitter: @MarkRWeaver.

Newsweek: Cosby Is Free Because a Political Agenda Interfered With the Law →

Did you hear the one about the comedian who shortened his prison sentence because a prosecutor got too political? It's no joke. It's the reason the Pennsylvania Supreme Court just let serial sex offender Bill Cosby go free, despite his manifest guilt. And make no mistake: It's the mixing of law and politics that made this happen.

What do I mean by that? People around the country know Cosby well, but they likely don't understand the level of veneration he previously received in Philadelphia. Cosby made his home in the area and was the public face of his alma mater, Temple University; he was as ubiquitous as cheesesteaks and soft pretzels. Before he was "America's Dad," Cosby was unmistakably Philadelphia's hometown hero.

And it's here in Montgomery County, just north of Philadelphia, that Cosby was first accused of sexual assault back in 2005 by a single victim. It would be nearly a decade before other victims came forward publicly, which means the district attorney at the time, Bruce Castor, had to confront the kind of tough decision prosecutors make every day. With just a single accuser, Castor determined that a "he said, she said" prosecution—one with almost no other admissible supporting evidence brought against a popular local megastar—was not going to result in a unanimous panel of jurors returning a conviction.

What Castor saw was the door to holding Cosby accountable in this particular criminal case locked tight. So he opened another door: civil accountability and money damages for Cosby's victim. To help the victim's civil case, Castor promised to not prosecute Cosby for the alleged assault. With that pledge clearing the way, Cosby admitted to the misconduct and eventually paid $3.4 million in damages.

As a prosecutor, I've had to make similar decisions in sex offense cases. These assessments may be easy to critique from the armchair, but they are painfully difficult when made from the desk of the county's top law enforcer, who possesses limited resources and a daunting burden of proof.

I think Castor got it right.

And contrary to what you may have heard, his decision is not the reason Cosby is free. The blunder that allowed Cosby to escape the jailer's grasp—the mixing of politics into the legal system—came later, when the current Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele imprudently used the non-prosecution decision as a political battering ram in his election campaign to defeat Castor. Steele acted like a candidate desperate to be elected, rather than a career prosecutor who must abide by professional ethics and previous commitments. Then, once he took over the office, Steele felt impelled to fulfill his campaign pledge to go after Cosby.

Steele blithely ignored Castor's covenant not to prosecute and pretended that commitments of the previous administration were somehow not binding on him. That ridiculous impulse runs afoul of the most basic notions of public administration as well as centuries of British and American court decisions.

Indeed, even when judges rode to court on horseback and read law books by candlelight, when a promise was made and someone else relied on and made decisions because of it, the promise was then—and is now—binding. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court essentially declared that government officials like district attorneys are similarly bound.

The ability to imprison Cosby for his predations might have been salvaged if the details of District Attorney Castor's agreement had been written and vetted with a judge. In other criminal cases, these immunity agreements are strengthened and clarified by statute and case law. Castor says there was no agreement, per se, just his decision not to go forward. But giving Cosby's attorneys a clear roadmap of where they could order their client to stop answering questions in the civil deposition would've allowed prosecutors to advance the cases of the other victims. The high court ruling essentially says, if the legal taint starts at the headwaters, the foul currents travel all the way downstream.

It's easy to forget how revered Cosby was in 2005, and how difficult it would be to convince zealous local admirers that he was some sort of secret sex predator. In the law school class I taught for two decades, I discussed this challenge of "cognitive dissonance" and how difficult it is for prosecutors to overcome. Filing charges makes for great headlines, but losing cases because the local jury pool never had an open mind makes the initial charging decision appear dubious.

Too much of this is driven by political factors. Nationally, far left activists are investing heavily in putting prosecutors in office who will be more political than professional and more activist than attorney. The question Cosby's release raises is a crucial one for prosecutors running for office: Will the campaign promises made by a prosecutorial wannabe with a partisan agenda set the stage for a dangerous criminal being able to dodge the reckoning of the justice system?

In this case, the answer was yes. The fault is not Castor's but Steele's. And we see more proof that mixing politics and the law can make for volatile, even dangerous results.

Mark R. Weaver is a prosecutor in Ohio who previously practiced in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and later served as Deputy Attorney General of Ohio. He is the author of the book A Wordsmith's Work. Twitter: @MarkRWeaver.

Newsweek: Why Derek Chauvin's Guilty Verdict May Be Overturned →

The jury returned the verdict many in the country clamored for: Guilty of murder. Crowds surrounding the courthouse cheered. Reporters, whose pre-trial coverage declared the defendant guilty, barely hid their delight. In the end, the killer was shackled and sent to prison. The court commotion was unlike anything Americans had ever seen. Yet justice wasn't done.

I'm not talking about Derek Chauvin's murder trial. The jury spoke in that case and unless a higher court says otherwise, their verdicts stand; those disgruntled about it must remember justice is a process, not a result.

What I'm talking about is the 1954 trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard, a Cleveland area doctor accused of murdering his wife in a story so sensational it spawned a popular TV series and movie called "The Fugitive."

But the Sheppard case is instructive in trying to understand our own moment—especially the crucial question of whether the guilty verdict against Chauvin will hold. In fact, the Sheppard precedent may just result in Chauvin's guilty verdict being overturned by a higher court.

In the Sheppard case, reporters bullied public officials into acting before they were ready. Before the coroner had even convened a hearing to determine the cause of death, the morning edition of one newspaper ran a front page editorial with a headline screeching, "Why No Inquest? Do it now, Dr. Gerber." Later that day, Coroner Samuel Gerber genuflected to public opinion and called an inquest.

The coroner scheduled his inquest in a large gymnasium to allow hundreds of citizens to observe. When it started, he theatrically refused to allow Sheppard's attorney to speak, playing to the crowd, and disregarded any notion of fairness. He was rewarded with loud applause and even kisses from some of the women in the room.

But that's not all: Media outlets were furious that Sheppard had not yet been arrested, and they employed the power of their platforms to change that. Shortly after the coroner's kangaroo court, one front-page editorial asked, "Why Isn't Sam Sheppard in Jail?" The prosecutor dutifully arranged for Sheppard to be arrested that evening.

After that, the trial began quickly—not incidentally, just a few short weeks before the presiding judge would stand for reelection. And the media coverage was wall-to-wall. Reporters outnumbered the trial participants by a huge margin. Broadcast cameras and microphones choked the court room. Like Derek Chauvin's trial, the Sheppard trial was the most talked about case in the nation.

And like the jury in the Chauvin case, the jurors in Sheppard's trial were not sequestered. Some even admitted to hearing false news reports about a woman claiming she'd given birth to Sheppard's child. The defense asked the judge to inquire if other jurors had heard this report, but he refused. "We are not going to harass the jury every morning," he retorted.

Sheppard was convicted. But that was not the end of his story. His case went to the Supreme Court, where the case centered not on whether Sheppard was guilty, but on whether the trial was fair, given the overwhelmingly hostile media coverage that stoked public hatred.

The high court's decision? The trial was not fair and thus violated the Constitution. As the justices put it in one of the more memorable descriptions in Supreme Court caselaw, "In this atmosphere of a 'Roman holiday' for the news media, Sam Sheppard stood trial for his life."

Sheppard walked free.

In the intervening decades, it has become obvious that the rise of new platforms for news distribution make the sort of overreach seen in the Sheppard case more likely to reoccur, along with the possibility of verdicts being overturned. And this year has reached the apex of that phenomenon.

Chauvin's judge made key errors, one of which was refusing to sequester the jury from media coverage and the racial protests that roiled America and Minneapolis. By allowing the aroma of bias to waft into the jury room, he may have given an appeals court a reason to use the Sheppard standard to set Chauvin free.

The judge even acknowledged the jury might have been exposed to dangerous and reckless incitement by California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Waters traveled to Minnesota just as the jury was preparing to deliberate, where she told crowds that if there wasn't a guilty verdict, "You've got to get more confrontational." The threat became a part of the court record, and as the judge told Chauvin's defense lawyer, "Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned."

One of the centerpieces of American political and legal culture is an emphasis on the importance of transparency. Unlike other countries, like Canada, which can ban news coverage of prominent trials, we believe transparency enhances the credibility of courts, just as we covet the disinfecting effect of sunshine in government. But to compensate, American judges have numerous tools to protect cases from improper influence by public opinion and media hype. Sadly, the judge in Chauvin's trial imprudently left many of these implements in the tool shed.

We won't see Derek Chauvin facing off against Tommy Lee Jones, proclaiming his innocence on the edge of a dam, the way Hollywood portrayed Sam Sheppard. But there may be a rough reckoning for those who believe the desired end—a guilty verdict—justified the means of trial by media.

Appeals court judges will now determine if the process, and not just the verdict, was fair.

Mark R. Weaver is a criminal prosecutor, crisis communications consultant, and the former Deputy Attorney General of Ohio. He is the author of the book "A Wordsmith's Work." Twitter: @MarkRWeaver

Newsweek: Want Justice for George Floyd? Root for a Fair Trial, Not a Specific Outcome →

The trial against Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with killing George Floyd, begins today. Everyone wants justice. But what that justice might look like often differs depending on political perspective. For some, an acquittal will mean justice wasn't served, while others will view a conviction as a miscarriage of justice.

Emotions in this case are understandably high. But in a way, this predicament haunts every court case: Two sides stroll into court, each wanting a different outcome and each ready to label victory justice and defeat injustice.

Can it be that justice is genuinely subjective? Is justice, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder? As a criminal prosecutor who has won and lost many jury trials over the last two decades, I say no.

At least in the American legal system, justice is a process, not a result. Lawyers and judges call this the due process of law, though folks who were smart enough to avoid law school simply call it fairness.

Now, fairness is hard to define, but we all recognize it when we see it: Two siblings jockeying for the bigger part of the last remaining brownie may groan at the idea, but when mom says one gets to cut and the other gets to pick, they will grudgingly acknowledge her system is fair. When I watch baseball, I occasionally loudly dispute a strike called or missed, but I recognize the umpires don't favor either team; there's a rulebook everyone knows, and the field is level from one end to the other. The game—even when my favorite team loses—is undoubtably designed for fairness.

So, too, is the American legal system. I've won some cases with middling evidence and lost others with strong evidence. In each case, a common thread was manifest: procedural fairness. A judge with no interest in the outcome presided, jurors chosen from the community voted, and there were court rules that both sides understood and followed. Fair's fair.

Whether you call it fairness or due process, it's a venerable tradition. As the kid brother to the British legal tradition, due process came to America as a hand me down. It emanated from the Magna Carta and the court cases flowing from that great charter. Our laws, borrowed and improved from British jurisprudence, follow suit.

The term due process may have been coined in old England but Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe the notion is as old as the universe itself. People of faith, myself included, trust that just as no human invented the multiplication tables or gravity, which were discovered, not devised, by people, so too is justice a creation of God. The moral compass points true north; we don't force the needle in that direction.

Those who insist justice must line up with their current feelings bring a magnet to the moral compass, distorting its guidance. Self-indulgent shouts of "I must be right" mark a wearisome phase through which toddlers pass, yet adults who exhibit this egocentricity deserve less tolerance, and certainly no brownies.

More than ever, in moments of deep controversy and high emotion, fealty to this crucial lesson is paramount, which means that as we brave the storm of the Derek Chauvin trial, we must lash ourselves to the mast of the fundamental tenet, that justice is a process. Setting aside the very real, if not likely, possibility of a hung jury, Americans must be prepared to accept a verdict different than that of their own whim or passion.

Too often, those with the strongest views about high profile legal cases have watched little of the trial. Second guessing jurors who sat through every minute of testimony and arguments and considered every scrap of evidence is like reviewing a book after only glancing at the back cover. Juries deserve deference.

Of course, some juries lose their way. My mouth dropped when a jury declared O.J. Simpson not guilty, and I'm in the majority of Americans who believe he's a murderer. Yet as a citizen who fully embraces the U.S. Constitution, I accept the outcome of his criminal (and civil) trial as a valid expression of a system designed—not guaranteed—to be fair.

No procedures run by fallible humans will ever be perfect, so setting that as the standard is naïve. In sports, cheer for your favorite team to win. In politics, vote for your desired candidate to be elected. But in the legal system, hope—and pray— not for the result you crave, but for the process of justice itself to prevail.

Mark R. Weaver is a criminal prosecutor, crisis communications consultant, and the former Deputy Attorney General of Ohio. He is the author of the book "A Wordsmith's Work." Twitter: @MarkRWeaver

Cincinnati Enquirer: Limiting speech only pushes people to the fringes →

By Matt dole

Today’s examples of actual censorship – Twitter blocking accounts, Facebook suspending pages, or Amazon removing an entire platform, Parler, from its cloud hosting servers – portends grave danger on our societal horizon. That people applaud these constrictions of speech in the name of their personal political ideology is at least disappointing in its ignorance, and at worst dangerous in its short-sightedness.

The First Amendment protects citizens from government infringement upon their free speech rights. It’s up to the rest of us to stand up and call out other breaches of free speech, so let me do just that: Limiting speech and allowing any entity – from the government, a private company, or a neighbor – to decide what speech is acceptable and what should be censored is Soviet-style culture. 

Remember that the the phrase, "politically correct" started as an unironic description of how a resident in post-revolutionary Russia could survive under the regime. And what of those who found it difficult to be politically correct? They and their families were simply disappeared.

Limiting speech, even that which one might find particularly offensive, moves us towards totalitarianism. Its advocates will be very surprised when the figurative cannon of censorship is turned upon them, followed quickly behind by the literal cannons of dictatorship.

With Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon taking action against conservatives, it’s liberals who are quick to point out that these are corporations who get to make their own rules. That’s debatable given both their status as publicly-traded companies and their fundamental role as publishers of content on the internet. What if FedEx or UPS (Or Amazon!) decided to stop delivering to homes with those "this house believes" signs? Under that scenario, we’ll see liberals quickly adding free speech to their list of things about which to be "woke."

You might argue that social media is frivolous compared to the tangible service of delivering packages, but you’d probably do your arguing on Facebook or Twitter, which indicates these platform’s important places in our lives (whether we like it or not). Furthermore, let’s not forget that the liberal’s current mantra, "private companies can serve who they want," also served as a 1960s rallying cry for segregated lunch counters.

The giddiness shown by some about such censorship illustrates a certain lack of vision. I’m reminded of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid doing away with the 60-vote threshold on presidential nominations before the U.S. Senate. Reid’s followers were thrilled by that in the moment, but they weren’t so happy when Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell used it to affirm three U.S. Supreme Court justices and nearly 250 total judges.

It can happen to you.

Here’s the worst part: censorship cannot achieve the goals of those seeking it. Stopping someone from expressing an opinion, doesn’t stop them from holding that opinion. It does make them angrier and more entrenched in their belief. It pushes people to the fringes, makes them more extreme, and causes them to seek out disruptive leaders. Disruptors like Donald Trump. 

An open and free expression of ideas is the very thing that leads us to solutions acceptable to the largest number of people. That’s not just true during debates in the halls of Congress, it’s true even on Twitter, Facebook and Parler. Limiting speech and giving voice to only one side causes suspicion and dug-in opposition.

Allowing companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon to decide what ideas they’ll allow isn’t a solution. And the genie won’t be put back inside its bottle after Trump leaves office. In fact, like toddlers learning to walk and talk, the Technocrats are just starting to test their boundaries. That the road to sharing ideas goes through the Silicon Valley campuses of our tech overlords should scare you to death.

As we lament society becoming more and more fragmented, some are staring the leading cause of fragmentation in the face and actively cheering it on. Parler built a platform because of liberal-approved Twitter and Facebook censorship. Fox News exists because the press was seen as not giving conservative ideas a fair shake. This didn’t start in 2016, but it has certainly accelerated exponentially since.

Here’s the thing: free speech is either free or it isn’t. Seems simple enough, but people’s action today proves the need for a reminder. There’s no middle ground. It’s not "speech my segment of society agrees with is free." Speech isn’t subject to that great democratic principle of majority rule. Fifty-one percent of the people don’t get to decide that some speech isn’t free. All speech is free speech, 100% of the time. That’s the only way it can work – speech must be immune to cultural attack. 

The solution is what we did for 240 years. If one disagrees or deems something hateful, don’t invite those people into your house. Change the channel. Express your own view about how wrong the offender is. Cancel your subscription. And, as it relates specifically here, unfollow, unlike, or delete your account. Your account. Not theirs.

Celebrate free speech, don’t limit it. One path may lead to uncomfortable disagreement, but the other path leads to Soviet-style despotism. We must all be on the same path. If Big Tech companies want to act like toddlers pushing boundaries, we must respond in kind – sticks and stones may break my bones, but free speech will never hurt me.

Matt Dole is a communications consultant who lives in Newark and works in Columbus.

The Daily Wire: Biden must finally decide between moderates and Democratic Socialists →

By Libby Krieger

Come January, if we transition to a Biden administration, the Democratic Party will be left with a stark choice regarding the future of their platform. During the election, rather than supporting specific policies, Democrats largely unified against President Trump. However, while this decision may have been successful, will Democrats be able to unite over any issues other than their hatred of Trump in a post-Trump world?

Read the rest at The Daily Wire by clicking the title.

Newsweek: Trump Didn't Cause America's Division and Biden Won't Heal It →

By Mark R. weaver

Many political soothsayers predicted that voters would robustly rebuke President Donald Trump's bid for reelection. Joe Biden's anemic victory burst that bubble.

Rather that reflect on the biases that clouded their view of reality, some now suggestthat a Biden presidency will somehow heal our frayed nation. While only charlatans and chuckleheads claim to foresee the future, I don't recommend placing a bet on national unity in the years ahead.

That's because Donald Trump wasn't the reason for the divide that vexes us—it's been festering for decades. Years before Barack Obama became president, he lamented how the country had already split, red against blue. Yet, like Trump, Obama offered rhetoric and actions that further alienated us from one another.

During the Obama years, waves of anger frothed on the crosscurrents of American political discourse. We saw tumultuous riots in Baltimore and Ferguson and winced as social media slap fights became the rule rather than the exception. Further dissent emerged, via thousands of Tea Party rallies, where aggrieved Americans protested government transgressions—though in a way that left windows unbroken, stores unlooted and police officers uninjured.

Did the gap grow worse over the last four years? Undoubtedly. But like a political tumor, this domestic discord would have swelled no matter who inhabited the White House.

We're a country in conflict. Swapping leaders won't change that any more than changing hats will quell a migraine. Resolving an obstinate problem requires dogged digging for the underlying cause.

Finding the source of our disunity is imperative because national conflict can occasionally turn deadly. More than 600,000 died in the American Civil War. One side advocated state sovereignty and held a despicable devotion to slavery. The other advanced national unity through God-given freedom and equality. It was more a clash of ideas than culture.

Contrast that with the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where racial and class disparities exploded into the butchery of more than half a million people who shared a language, religion and regional history. The slaughter was identity politics gone mad. Ideas didn't matter—but what someone looked like or which group was in power did.

We all want to forestall conflicts, especially those based on identity. So, how to assemble a national jigsaw puzzle that seems like a jumble of pieces from two different boxes, one red and one blue? I suggest an agreement on a national touchstone. Happily, the Founding Fathers provided us one. In 1776, when those bold men gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence, they realized the world would want to know why the new nation was forming and what ethos it would establish.

In the Declaration's introduction, a line stands out that states plainly what our nation believes: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This is the American creed. If anything should unite us, it's this sacred notion. It acknowledges that individuals inherit rights from God and legitimate governments are only formed by the consent of, and with deference to, those rights-endowed people. It took a few centuries for this "promissory note"—as latter-day Founding Father Martin Luther King, Jr., called it when praising the "magnificent words" of the Declaration and the Constitution—to become more perfectly fulfilled. Yet fulfilled it was.

No one is required to believe the American creed and we, rightfully, don't jail or exile those who sneer at it. Yet that doesn't alter its underlying truth or salience. And our national estrangement stems from a baseline misunderstanding of it.

Americans are not tribesmen. We're individuals fully responsible for our own actions and abjectly unaccountable to any group—particularly one based on things over which we have no control. Judging people on such immutable characteristics is reprehensible. This is why, for example, our nation rejects as bigotry all race-based preferences and distinctions. Herding people into groups and pitting them against each other is anti-American because it's antithetical to our creed. Worse yet, it inflames our current national discord.

In his Gettysburg address, Abraham Lincoln wondered whether a resentfully riven nation could long endure. This compelling question hung over the Obama era and lasted through Trump's tenure. It will remain relevant during the Biden administration.

If Americans are to unite, it won't be around a politician or a political party. Joe Biden, a doddering D.C. dinosaur, can't heal the wounds—perceived or actual—caused by President Trump. Nor is he likely to mend or even confront the damage inflicted by the hateful sliver of the populace that burns, loots and defaces cities and our very system of justice.

If you expect a politico to deliver unity, you'll be waiting longer than a calendar full of election days. That's because reconciliation isn't the province of politicians—it falls to us. We'll come together only when we embrace the notion that we are a nation of individuals, responsible and accountable for ourselves and owing neither allegiance nor alliance to a tribe.

Nurturing unity requires us to rebuff those who diverge from our national creed and uplift those who speak and live it. Let's look beyond Biden and Trump; political parties will eventually perish. Yet our American creed, when kindled and commended, can last forever.

Mark R. Weaver is an Ohio attorney and national crisis communications expert who formerly served as spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. He is the author of the book "A Wordsmith's Work." Twitter: @MarkRWeaver

Newsweek: Why Is 'Dark Money' Any Worse Than 'Dark Journalism?' →

Over the last decade, a new epithet has made the rounds of the perpetually perturbed: "dark money." A calmer descriptor is anonymous political advocacy. Those who frequently use the term "dark money" fancy that such funds are shelled out by evil special interests plotting to undermine American democracy with creepy political commercials and mailers that twist the truth. The term was coined by a left-leaningspecial-interest group, itself plagued by scandals. The fact that this group obscures the source of much of its funding through donations laundered through other shadowy special-interest groups is a reminder that irony will always be in style.

Nonetheless, repeating the phrase "dark money" like an incantation, several state lawmakers, judges and city councilors are proposing new laws that would criminalize anonymous speech intended to influence policy or politics. This newish trend of government commissars forcing sponsors of political speech to be named is dangerous and ahistorical.

The tendency to target people based on unpopular views has bloomed out of control and is responsible for people losing their jobs and, in some cases, having their lives threatened. Doxxing—the pernicious practice of releasing private information on the internet as an intimidation tactic—grows more common every year. And political donors are ripe targets.

If we're genuinely interested in discussing the best policy ideas for our nation, the advocate of the proposal ought to be immaterial. The despicable among us may offer a few great ideas, and the noble may suggest some clunkers. The person backing a proposition is much less relevant than the merits of the notion itself. Either a policy helps to solve a problem within the scope of government, or it doesn't.

But, sadly, that's not the ethos of this era. All too often, immersed in Facebook foolishness and Twitter twaddle, Americans prefer demonization to dialogue. Making fun of a person requires much less thought and reason than critiquing an initiative. "Tax doorknobs? Only a stupid person like Frankie would propose that!" Some folks imagine that such criticism has the same moral force as an evaluation of the pros and cons. They're wrong.

Three of our most able Founding Fathers understood this well. When Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison sought to convince their fellow countrymen to support the newly drafted U.S. Constitution, they drafted numerous essays discussing the virtues of the document. To avoid these principles being colored by the reputations of the three authors, they wrote The Federalist Papers under a pseudonym.

The need for anonymous speech was obvious enough for the U.S. Supreme Court to once note: "Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all." Even more to the point, the high court has ruled that anonymous political activity "is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, which often includes the ability of political advocates to speak anonymously. Yet assault with the weaponized phrase "dark money" persists apace.

In another large dose of irony, many of those who disparage "dark money" no doubt cheered a recent account from The Atlantic, which put forward the curious allegation that President Trump spurned a chance to visit a European cemetery filled with American war dead because they were "losers" and "suckers" for dying. This offbeat assertion is what overeager journalists call a tip that's "too good to check." In that spirit of zeal, The Atlantic ran the piece with only anonymous sourcing. Others—including critics of the president—went on the record to refute the allegation.

Reporters rightfully praise the remarks of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who once wrote, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." So, in alliance with these new efforts to further extend the rays of sunshine, I suggest we call The Atlantic article, and all other reporting based on anonymous sourcing, "dark journalism."

While I'm not recommending such a rule, arguably, more public good would come from requiring journalists to name their sources than forcing non-candidate political committees to identify donors. Political efforts typically advance ideas and candidates. Yet all too often, reporting like the kind done by The Atlantic lobs allegations that demand needed verification—but which anonymity precludes. Worse yet, the claims made by anonymous sources in the court of public opinion are not subject to the constitutional protections found in the court of law, where accusers must step into the sunlight and be confronted by those they accuse.

If dark money is dangerous and worthy of government regulation, so too for dark journalism. To be sure, reporters have First Amendment freedom of press protection, which includes the legal license to print or air stories with anonymous sourcing. Yet that same constitutional amendment may also shield those who seek to advance political ideas anonymously via dark money.

John Adams famously remarked that the U.S. Constitution "was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." If the First Amendment becomes a shield for scoundrels who couldn't find true north on the most calibrated moral compass, perhaps more regulation is in order. If so, there's little support for the premise that dark money must be exposed, while dark journalism can continue wallowing in the shadows. A consistent approach is needed.

Mark R. Weaver is a partner at an Ohio law firm who has argued First Amendment cases in several courts. The former deputy attorney general of Ohio, he is the author of the communications book A Wordsmith's Work. Twitter: @MarkRWeaver.

USA Today: Oberlin College's complicity in false racism charge against bakery reeks of McCarthyism →

By Mark R. Weaver

Sixty-five years ago this month, there was a whiplash-level turning point in history. An exasperated attorney for the Army was tired of hard-charging Communist-exposer Senator Joseph McCarthy outing the names of alleged communists during a televised hearing. That lawyer asked the question many others were thinking: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Communism was and is serious business. It was the executioner’s theme for millions murdered in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and elsewhere. McCarthy used that specter to punish his enemies and amass political power.

Many historians identify that moment as the first stumble in McCarthyism’s downfall. But McCarthy’s true blunder was shaming with too broad a stroke, as some accusations were well-founded. When the Iron Curtain tumbled down, official documentation emerged that verified what many suspected all along: there were Soviet spies in our government. So, if McCarthy was substantively correct, why did so many turn their backs to him? 

By overstating the problem and overplaying his hand, he overlooked the need to be responsible with such an important topic. His credibility collapsed like a bad alibi.

History has arranged a similar pivot point to coincide with the anniversary of that incident. Earlier this month, jurors in Northeast Ohio called out a different kind of attempt to exploit a serious issue — racism. And it was Oberlin College called to account.

A $44 million mistake

The Gibson family bakery and store has served the Oberlin town and gown for more than a century. If students shoplift there, the store presses charge — without regard to skin color. Townspeople revere the family, now staffed by three generations of Gibsons.

In 2016, when three underage black students tried to steal alcohol from the store, an owner confronted them, which led to the students assaulting him. The students at Oberlin initially cried racism. Later, when they admitted guilt in court, they acknowledged the bakery's staff had not acted in a racially motivated manner.

This happened right after President Trump’s election, when the campus was in full political pout. Despite no evidence of racism by the store, the already-agitated campus erupted in protests. The Gibsons were targeted with death threats and loss of business. Surprisingly, the college egged on the demonstrations, even after they knew racism wasn’t involved. College staff distributes flyers falsely alleging racial profiling by the Gibsons and ended a program where the bakery provided food for student dining. Emails showed some college administrators acting as irresponsibly as many students.

Unlike many tainted by false accusations, the Gibson family didn’t let these slanderous slurs slide. At a time when accountability seems like a quaint notion of the past, they sued and the jury ordered the college to pay $44 million in damages. It’s as if the jurors turned to college officials and their student cohorts and asked them, "have you no decency?"

The lesson? Making false allegations of racism is egregious and morally bankrupt.

Racism is a problem, but not in every heart

When I was a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, I worked on heinous cases where innocent people were abused because of their skin color. Racism is a sin against God’s own notion that we’re all equal and created in his image. It’s a genuine problem. Only the ignorant or ignoble deny this.

Yet racism does not reside in every heart, it cannot be found around every corner, and it has unquestionably lessened dramatically as America found its footing of fairness following the Civil War of the 1860s and the Civil Rights reforms of the 1960s. Only the ignorant or ignoble will deny that.

Sadly, Oberlin College’s actions aren’t unique. Their accomplices across America, and in grimy corners of the internet, regularly brandish false allegations of racism. Worse yet, they do it to punish enemies and amass political power. This despicably dishonors heroes like Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King.

Just as Americans rebuffed the demagoguery of McCarthy when he exploited and inflated the indisputable problem of Communist infiltration to expand his power, we should reject those demagogues who exploit and inflate racism for political gain.

These jurors, imbued with common sense and common decency, may have activated the turn signal in what could be a national lane change in a country where — sadly — insults masquerade as logic and victimhood impersonates character. Like the man who called out McCarthy, they deserve our gratitude.

This article appeared in USA Today, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and Real Clear Politics.