J. Michael Luttig, a widely respected former federal judge who was shortlisted by President George W. Bush for a Supreme Court nomination, sounded a sober warning during a lecture at the Miller Center: American democracy and the rule of law are under “vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack—from within.”

Luttig served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 until 2006 and gave the 23rd annual Henry J. Abraham Distinguished Lecture in May 2023. The lecture honors the late Henry J. Abraham, a renowned constitutional law scholar and University of Virginia professor.

According to a recent poll, around one in four Republicans approved of the insurrection—a “stunning and grim” admission of what “Americans believe today about our democracy and rule of law.”

Luttig expressed concern about the dangers posed by America’s growing political divide. He noted that polls indicate both Democrats and Republicans fear that American democracy is in danger of collapse, putting the nation at a “perilous crossroads.”

The January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was a paramount example of the relentless assaults on American democracy from within, said Luttig, who testified before the House Select Committee investigating the attack. According to a recent poll, around one in four Republicans approved of the insurrection—a “stunning and grim” admission of what “Americans believe today about our democracy and rule of law.”

“America is adrift,” Luttig said. “We Americans have lost our moral compass that has pointed us true north since the founding. This is not who we Americans are or who we want to be.”

A leading conservative thinker, Luttig criticized the politicization of the Supreme Court nomination process, for which he asserted all three branches of government are to blame. For years, he said, presidents have “cynically appointed to judicial positions not those who they are assured will uphold the law” but rather “those who they are assured share their own political, social, and policy views—and will enshrine those views in the Constitution, once appointed.”

“America is adrift,” Luttig said. “We Americans have lost our moral compass that has pointed us true north since the founding. This is not who we Americans are or who we want to be.”

Meanwhile, Luttig continued, Congress “attempts to withhold confirmation from those who do not share its own social policy and political views and pledge to constitutionalize those views.”

The Supreme Court has also forsaken its constitutional duties, Luttig said, increasingly basing its judicial decisions on politics and partisanship and failing to subject itself to standards of ethical conduct. Consequently, Americans’ approval of the Supreme Court has dropped to a historic low, according to recent polls.

The judge ultimately blamed the nation’s leaders on both sides of the aisle for inciting division and failing to bridge the country’s differences.

“As of this particular moment, our Republican leaders have especially failed us—and reprehensibly so,” Luttig said. “It is obvious that we cannot hobble along much longer, hopelessly divided, politically and governmentally paralyzed.”

To save the nation’s democracy, Luttig called on Americans to “purge the ranks of our political leaders who have betrayed us” and elect leaders who exhibit honor, humility, and courage, representing the interests of both the people and the country.

“It is obvious that we cannot hobble along much longer, hopelessly divided, politically and governmentally paralyzed.”

“Once we have reclaimed our country, our democracy, and our Constitution from the political demagogues and charlatans,” Luttig said, then Americans must decide “who it is that we want to be and what it is that we want America to be.” In addition to refocusing on matters that “we agree upon and that unite us,” Americans must rediscover and reexamine “the ideals, the truths, the values, and the principles upon which our country was founded.”

WATCH THE ABRAHAM LECTURE