Three years since J621, and American democracy really is on the line

 

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.

1. The events of January 6 capped two months during which Donald Trump sought to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.
2. Trump then incited the attack on the Capitol.
3. Trump’s attempted coup continues to this day.
4. Trump has still not been held accountable.
5. 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.