It has been three long years since a violent
mob of MAGA-addled
"patriots"/"tourists"/"peaceful
protesters" viciously attacked the US Capitol Building in Washington DC in an attempt to overturn the election of President Joe
Biden and keep #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump in power.
So far, those most responsible for the attack -- including Trump
himself -- have yet to be held fully accountable. That's an ongoing process,
according to the Department of Justice, anyway. But there are powerful forces fighting justice, so there's that.
In any case, make no mistake about it: January 6 has become a focal point of both Biden's and
Trump's 2024 presidential campaigns -- but in markedly different
ways. From AP, January 4, 2024:
With Biden and Trump now headed toward a potential 2020 rematch, both are talking about the same event in very
different ways and offering framing they believe gives them
an advantage. The dueling narratives reflect how an attack
that disrupted the certification of the election is
increasingly viewed differently along partisan lines — and
how Trump has bet that the riot won’t hurt his candidacy...
...Trump has still built a commanding lead in the Republican
primary, and his rivals largely refrain from criticizing him
about Jan. 6. He has called it “a beautiful day” and
described those imprisoned for the insurrection as “great,
great patriots” and “hostages.” At some campaign
rallies, he has played a recording of “The Star-Spangled
Banner” sung by jailed rioters — the anthem interspersed
with his recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Republican strategist Alice Stewart said that “a lot of
Republican voters don’t love Jan. 6, but they’re not
obsessed about it either” and may support Trump because
they oppose Biden’s economic policies.
“Republican voters can hold two consecutive thoughts and
say, ‘Jan. 6, that wasn’t great, but that doesn’t
affect my bottom line,’” she said.
Yeah, and that's a problem. It's not an
insurmountable problem -- or maybe I am just being overly
optimistic -- but it's an enormous problem nonetheless. Despite
the ongoing aggressive attempts to sweep the Capitol attack under
the rug, it is impossible to overstate how bad January 6 really
was, and how strongly it signaled, and continues to signal, the
deep peril to American democracy.
Dark Brandon takes the podium
President Biden certainly understands the peril, and he was in
full Dark Brandon mode at Valley
Forge, Pennsylvania on January 5, 2024. He went on the offensive
(and if you actually find his words offensive because you are
stuck on Trump, well, to quote your camp, f--k your feelings). As
today's Mother Jones headline points out, the strongest words in Biden's speech were direct
quotations from Trump himself.
“His first rally for the 2024
campaign,” Biden said of Trump, “opened with a choir of January 6th insurrectionists singing
from prison on a cellphone
while images of the January 6th riot played on the big screen
behind him at his rally.”
“Can you believe that?” Biden asked.
Biden went on: “The guy who claims law and order sows
lawlessness and disorder…Trump is now promising a
full-scale campaign of revenge and retribution, his
words, for some years to come. They were his words, not mine.”
Biden also reminded the audience that Trump has said he’d
be a dictator on “day one”
and has called for “the termination of rules, regulations, and
articles, even those found in the Constitution,” to overturn election results.
Here is a CSPAN link to a video of Biden's speech.
If you're trying to preserve bandwidth or just don't feel up to
watching a vid, here's a link to a transcript
of the speech. Biden didn't mince words about the cowardice and
hypocrisy of rethuglicans who initially condemned the vicious
attack on the Capitol, but subsequently caved to the Mango
Mussolini.
When
the attack on January sixth happened, there was no doubt
about the truth.
At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox News
commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack.
As one Republican senator said, Trump’s behavior was
embarrassing and humiliating for the country. But now that
same senator and those same people have changed their tune.
As time has gone on, gone on, politics, fear, money, all have
intervened.
And now these MAGA voices, who know the truth about Trump on
January sixth, have abandoned the truth and abandoned the
democracy.
They made their choice.
Now, the rest of us, Democrats, independents, mainstream
Republicans, we have to make our choice.
I know mine, and I believe I know America’s.
We’ll defend the truth, not give in to the big lie.
We’ll embrace the Constitution of the Declaration, not
abandon it.
We’ll honor the sacred cause of democracy, not walk away
from it.
Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: The defense,
protection and preservation of American democracy will
remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.
America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear:
Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.
That's no exaggeration. Good speech, Brandon.
Cheeto Jeezus tiptoes around J6
In contrast to President Biden, Trump's speeches, which took
place in Iowa the day after Biden spoke at Valley Forge, barely
mentioned the January 6 mob attack. You would think that he would
have been boasting about it, since he's been saying that it was a
"beautiful day" and that the rabid participants were
"great, great patriots" and "hostages" and all that -- and indeed, it's very possible that he
originally intended to take that approach. But maybe his handlers
reined him in after hearing Biden's no-holds-barred speech. In
any case, Trump focused not on J6 but on Biden's alleged
"incompetence." From NBC News, January 6, 2024:
Former President Donald Trump barely
mentioned the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol as he
rallied supporters in Iowa on Saturday, but his speech was
centered on countering President Joe Biden’s argument that
the riot and Trump’s broader effort to overturn the 2020
election represent a grave threat to the republic.
“This guy goes around and says I’m a threat to democracy,”
Trump said. “He’s a threat to democracy. ... You know,
you can be grossly incompetent and be a threat to democracy.”...
...He made just one reference to the date during Saturday’s
first event, a 113-minute speech — to express puzzlement
that he was impeached for his role. “Nobody thought J6 was
even a possibility,” he said, using a shorthand for the
date.
NOBODY thought J6 was a possibility?!? How
god-blasted stupid does he think his audience is? Well, I guess
he knows them better than I do. In a later rally in Clinton,
Iowa, Trump made a 62-minute speech that touched on many of the
issues he'd ranted about during the first diatribe, but again he
only mentioned the Capitol riots once, in passing. Instead he focused on many
of the same unfounded claims -- oh, let's call them what they
really are: lies -- that have littered his stump
speeches. Still, it's clear that he knows J6 is a problem for him. From NBC again:
But even as he tiptoed around the edges
of the anniversary, it was clear that Trump sees a political
imperative in fighting on the turf Biden has chosen — which
one of them represents a threat to democracy — if for no
other reason than to blunt the force of the central argument
against him.
“If you can bring it to a draw,” one Trump adviser said,
“it’s a win.”
And even though Trump has called Biden's
remarks in Pennsylvania a "ridiculous speech," he
didn't attempt to defend his own actions on January 6, when, let
us not forget, he not only incited his loyal mob to march on the
Capitol, but sat on his butt for hours watching the whole thing
on TV and declining to call on them to stop the riot.
But Trump's cult clearly prefer to keep lying to themselves that
the event was no big deal and has been seriously blown out of
proportion.
Others weigh in
In a January 6, 2024 article in The Guardian, Robert Reich recapped five truths that Trump hopes you
will forget about January 6, 2021.
- The events of January 6 capped two
months during which Donald Trump sought to reverse the
outcome of the 2020 election.
- Trump then incited the attack on the
Capitol.
- Trump’s attempted coup continues to
this day.
- Trump has still not been held
accountable.
- Trump maintains a demagogic hold over
the Republican party.
Under item number 5, Reich reminded us:
The Republican party
is close to becoming a cult whose central animating idea is
that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Trump has had help, of course. Fox News hosts and social
media groups have promoted and amplified his ravings for
their own purposes. The vast majority of Republicans in
Congress and in the states have played along.
The 2024 election will be the final and probably last
opportunity to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to
overturn the 2020 election, including his attempted coup
three years ago today.
The 2024 election may therefore be the last chance for
American democracy to function.
Axios today published a more detailed look at the way rethuglicans have caved
to the Cantaloupe Caligula.
Prominent Republicans
have softened their criticism of the insurrection in an
apparent loyalty test to former President Trump, the 2024 GOP
front-runner who is under two indictments over the 2020
election.
- Trump is on a collision
course with the
law as he vies for a second term, yet he's remained
an indomitable force in the Republican party.
- He survived a second impeachment
for incitement of insurrection just before leaving
office, and his legal team is appealing efforts
to bar him from
some states' 2024 primary ballots under the 14th
Amendment's insurrection clause.
- Richard Hasen, the director of
UCLA's Safeguarding Democracy Project, attributes
Republicans' shift
on Jan. 6 to Trump's "political popularity and
staying power."
Driving the news: A
Washington Post-University of Maryland poll out this week found Republicans had grown more
sympathetic to Capitol rioters and less likely to say Trump
bears responsibility than three years ago.
- 72% of Republicans responded it
was "time to move on" from the attack,
compared to 43% of U.S. adults overall and 14% of
Democrats.
- As of August, nearly 70% of
Republicans believed Biden's 2020 election was not
legitimate, per
a CNN poll.
Overall, 61% of Americans said Biden legitimately won
the election.
The conservative Bulwark posted an interview
highlighting why January 6 was that bad
(and in fact was even worse than many people may realize). Here's
a direct link to the conversation
between Bill Kriston and an author of the January 6 report. On
that page you'll find a breakdown of the matters discussed in the
interview:
Ballot Box with Bill & Tim
Tom Joscelyn, the author of the Jan 6th report, joins Bill
Kristol for a special Thursday night edition of the Ballot
Box. They cover everything you never learned about January
6th -- it was even worse than you thought.
0:00 - Intro
0:40 - Why
January 6th Matters
4:06 - The
Thoroughness of the Plot to Overturn the 2020 Election
6:21- The
Right’s Supportive Views on 1/6
11:09 -
Elected Officials Endorsing Trump for 2024
16:06- How a
Second Trump Term Would Be More Dangerous Than The First
18:28 - Trump
Embracing the Alex Jones Audience
20:22 - Trump’s
“Retribution” is Against Democracy
I could go on and on and on, the way I so often
do when I get going, but I don't think it's really necessary. For
one thing, it's doubtful that an obscure little blog that almost
nobody reads will change the course of events. But I don't feel
too bad in that regard, because it's pretty clear by now that
even the most-viewed and most listened-to news and opinion
sources won't change the minds of devout MAGAts who are convinced
that January 6 was either no big deal or that it was a big deal
but was justified.
To the sane world, January 6, 2021 was a terrible,
horrible, no-good, very bad day. The mob that stormed the US
Capitol smashed windows, smeared poo all over the walls, stole
stuff, chanted "Hang Mike Pence," threatened the life
of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and numerous others, bashed cops in
the head with fire extinguishers and flagpoles, and filmed
themselves for posterity.
And there are mountains of damning, credible evidence that Trump
and his MAGA minions in the legislature, the media, and the
general electorate were responsible for the horror. On the
6-month anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, I published a Whirled post highlighting a very
disturbing video, compiled by The New York Times,
called, "Day Of Rage." Originally
I had the video embedded in my post, but if you go to the post
now you'll see a big black rectangle with this warning:
This video is age-restricted and only
available on YouTube.
Learn more
Watch on
YouTube
You have to sign in to confirm your age, because
the video is that disturbing. Here's
that direct link again.
We've had three years of being exposed to credible eyewitness
reports and graphic evidence about how awful J6 was, and who was
responsible. Yet there are people -- apart from the cynical
gaslighters, I mean -- who are still genuinely convinced
that January 6, 2021 was no big deal, or that it was a big deal
but it was instigated by the FBI and/or antifa and/or BLM and/or
the Trump "enemies" of your choice, or that it was a
big deal but it was justified because the 2020 election was
stolen (or "stollen" in Trump Truth Social parlance).
Those beliefs say much, much more about the January 6 contrarians
than they do about the actual events of January 6. And what they
say about those folks is... well, I will err on the side of
politeness and just say that if intelligence and common sense
were prerequisites for voting in America, they would all be
ineligible to vote.
But they're not ineligible, and many of them will be voting. We
have to outvote them.
