January 6, 2021: NEVER FORGET

 

"The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay."
~ Donald John Trump, January 7, 2021

It's done: Vice President/Should-Have-Been-President-Elect Kamala Harris performed her Constitutionally-defined duties with dignity and grace, certifying the most tragic and disgraceful presidential election in modern American history. And she did it on the fourth anniversary of America's national day of shame, the 2021 Trump-incited Capitol riot/insurrection.

January 6, 2021 was a day of atrocities, and to state otherwise is either idiocy, willful blindness, or gaslighting. Most of us recall that in its immediate wake, J6 was widely acknowledged not only by the news media but also by both political parties for the horror it was. Even Trump himself condemned the Capitol Hill violence the day after it happened, although he did so only after intense pressure, delivering his message in that robotic, completely TelePrompter-dependent style utilized when he's mouthing words he doesn't actually believe, and he completely avoided mentioning his own role in inciting the mob. (Here is a link to his (falsehood-imbued) statement.)

Of course we also know how quickly the J6 Trumpublican narrative changed, with Trump aggressively plowing forward with the Big Lie (which he has never abandoned) and ultimately praising his violent mob as heroes and patriots, and with most republicans of any note falling on the side of J6 whitewash and denialism. As William Kristol and Andrew Egger wrote on The Bulwark today, the shock of what happened four years ago has been replaced by the shock of how that day has become accepted by so many.

...The January 6th truther-in-chief will be our next commander-in-chief. And his administration will be staffed by individuals who range from January 6th apologists to January 6th celebrators.

Meanwhile, the ranks of Trump’s party are full of such people, as is suggested by the fact that the leadership of the Republican House has refused to install a plaque honoring Capitol Police officers for their brave actions on January 6th, as required by a federal law signed in March 2023.

It is in a way fitting that one of the first acts of the new Trump administration will be presidential pardons or commutations for many of the January 6th felons. Why not? Their leader will be president. Why should they languish in prison?

Jonathan V. Last, also writing on The Bulwark, observed that all of this adds up to a tragedy worthy of Euripides. Last framed his opinion piece around a comparison of the roles of then-Vice President Mike Pence in 2021 and President Joe Biden in the intervening years.

Now maybe no president could have subdued Trumpism. I’m open to that possibility. But we don’t get to run the counterfactuals. We can only judge based on the results. And the result is that President Biden succeeded in nearly every aspect of job—except in the one that mattered most.

Mike Pence enabled authoritarianism. But succeeded in stopping Trump’s coup.

Joe Biden returned normalcy to political life and governed wisely. But he presided over the resurgence and total victory of the forces of Trumpism.

It’s a uniquely American tragedy.

Last is no fan of Pence and in fact is an admirer of and advocate for Biden, so this was undoubtedly difficult for him to write. He does make some valid points, however, and lists a few things that Biden could have or should have done that might have prevented Trump's victory. But we'll never know if even those strategies would have been enough to stem the toxic tide of Trumpism. In my more cynical moments I tend to doubt it.

Forgive and forget?
It remains to be seen whether or not Trump will in fact pardon and/or commute the sentences of January 6 insurrectionists on his much-touted "Day One." To do so would be a profoundly disgraceful act, and anyone who supports it cannot truthfully claim to be a backer of law and order or of those who risk their lives to preserve law and order. In a January 6, 2025 opinion piece published on The Hill, former Capitol Police Officer Aquilino Gonell, who was seriously injured by J6 rioters, wrote:

My colleagues and I who protected the Capitol that day don’t have the privilege of forgetting the Jan. 6 riot. To me, it still feels like it was yesterday.

I served in the U.S. Army and witnessed violence in combat, but I never thought I would see similar brutality inside the U.S. Capitol. I was assaulted by rioters for five hours. I was barricading the tunnels with my body, receiving blow after blow from rioters using makeshift weapons and stolen police gear. By the end, I was covered in my own blood. Exhausted, overwhelmed and trampled, I did not know whether I would make it home to see my wife and child. Those horrible memories are seared into my brain. I will never forget that feeling.

Like many other officers who served that day, I’ve spent years in mental and physical therapy — and have undergone two surgeries to heal from those wounds — but that feeling has never truly left me. It has altered the trajectory of my career and my life. Trump and his rioters not only stole my health but also the livelihoods of me and my fellow officers. 

According to Trump and MAGA Republicans, Jan. 6, 2021, was a “day of love.” If being beaten and trampled by a violent mob is love, then Trump and the insurrectionists who attacked me under his banner nearly loved me to death. While serving that day, I wasn’t focused on the implications of the attack. I was simply doing my job.

Let me be very clear: Republicans in Congress do not support law enforcement if they support the pardons of those who attacked police officers and attempted to overthrow our government — the antithesis of law and order. 

Rewriting history can't change what actually happened
What is clear now is that there is an enormous cultural divide between those who see J6 for what it truly was, and those who think it was no big deal.

Some go beyond thinking it's NBD and apparently even find it cause for hilarity. The reich-wing satire outlet Babylon Bee recently produced a mockumentary, The Most Deadliest Day, which conveys the message that J6 coverage was driven by leftist hysteria and that the event itself was indeed NBD. I get that this is satire and that satire can be offensive, but this particular satire misses the point because its underlying premise seems to be that those who were appalled by J6 considered it to be the worst day in human history. None of us ever said or implied any such thing; we only said it was one of the worst events in modern American history -- an event that shook the guardrails and truly imperiled democracy in a way that we'd never seen in our lifetimes.

And yet Trump and his allies continue to work very hard to rewrite that history. From a January 6, 2025 opinion piece in Newsweek, written by David Faris, Associate Professor at Roosevelt University:

Trump's years-long Orwellian disinformation campaign justifying the riot as legitimate political expression and lionizing the perpetrators as heroes suffering from unjust persecution succeeded in muddying what should have been crystal-clear waters. After getting wound up with one of Trump's patented speeches featuring a firehose of lies, non-sequiturs and bombast, thousands of brainwashed MAGA die-hards descended, lemming-like, on the United States Capitol Building, scaling the walls, roaming the halls and creating violent mayhem. Some of them were armed with guns, carried zip ties and had plans to capture and possibly kill members of Congress. Others likely believed they were along for some kind of twisted joyride and seemed to be having the time of their lives.

But no sentient person illicitly roaming the halls of Congress—while elected officials and their staffs ran for their lives and hid from them—could possibly have believed that what they were doing was acceptable or legal. Four rioters died or were killed at the scene, a U.S. Capitol Police officer lost his life the following day after sustaining injuries during the melee and several other officers committed suicide in the days and weeks that followed. One hundred forty other police officers were injured in the mayhem.

Faris also rips apart the common MAGA whataboutism argument that the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter rioters weren't treated nearly as harshly as the J6 perps:

The comparison also happens to be...factually wrong. More than 17,000 people were arrested during the summer 2020 protests, and more of them have served actual jail time than the Capitol rioters. Importantly—and I can't emphasize this enough—this is in spite of the fact that none of them were seeking to murder the vice president of the United States. If you can't accept that trying to kill members of congress is worse than smashing a window at a Cheesecake Factory, I just don't know what to tell you.

Remember and resist
All spin aside, January 6, 2021 was in fact a day of shame, and millions of us will never forget, even though for years we have been scolded and told we need to "get over it" and "move on." With King DonOld ascending the throne on January 20, there will almost certainly be even more of an effort to sweep the atrocities of J6 under the rug, coupled with attempts to retaliate against the bipartisan committee of true patriots who investigated January 6, held hearings, and issued a massive report about what really happened. Regarding the threats of retaliation, J6 committee principal Jamie Raskin, one of my personal heroes, has said, "Bring it on."

“We welcome any further investigation of Jan. 6 that they want to engage in,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol recently. “I've not seen an attack on even the smallest detail, so if they could come forward with a couple of those, then I might be able to accept what they're saying is something other than just idle political rhetoric.”

Few of us have the large platform of a Jamie Raskin or a Liz Cheney, but I think that all of us who believe in the truthful telling of American history can do our part to keep the Trumpublicans from rewriting that history. And in so doing we can possibly help push back the rising tide of authoritarianism/fascism that threatens not only America but the world at large. But it's up to us, as "God" Himself wrote on His January 6, 2025 message:

The problem isn’t just Trump—it’s the machine propping him up. It’s the money, the corporate media, and the revisionist storytelling that’s erasing what actually happened on January 6th. And if this is how we deal with an insurrection, what happens next?

No one is coming to save us. Not the corporations. Not your elected leaders. It’s truly on us. We have to unite against the billionaire class that is just fine with using fascism and propaganda to keep us all at each other’s throats.

Amen to that, God.

Related on this Whirled

July 6, 2021: Day of Rage: The most in-depth look yet at pro-Trump riot on January 6, 2021
Published on the 6-month anniversary of J6, this post highlights a must-see documentary that truly exposes the horror of the Capitol Hill riots. The embedded video is no longer available, but the YouTube link works, although the video is now age-restricted due to its intensely graphic nature. It's worth the effort to go through the steps of confirming your age in order to view it.

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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.

Day of Rage: The most in-depth look yet at pro-Trump riot on January 6, 2021

If you love The 4th of July,
never forget The 6th of January.
~ Facebook user Stewart Safran, 4 July, 2021

On June 30, 2021, the New York Times released a powerful video for their "Visual Investigations" series titled, "Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol." It provides the most detailed review yet of the "peaceful tourists" and "great patriots" (or, alternatively, antifa/Black Lives Matter et al. masquerading as supporters of the former guy) who stormed U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Six months in the making, the video is well worth the time and the bandwidth to watch it.

Here's the direct YouTube link, in case the embedded video above does not work.

Here is the link on the New York Times web site, which also provides links to previous Visual Investigations.

So far, unfortunately, the mango Mussolini who incited these "peaceful tourists" with his Big Lie has yet to truly be held accountable. And the "leadership" of the republican party, aka the Grand Obstructionist Party, continues to do everything they can to stymie thorough investigations of what happened on January 6, while downplaying the event or at least shifting blame.

Of course, the misinformed and the willfully blind will still believe the lies about what went down that day, and many may say that the NYT video is "doctored" or heavily edited to make the event look far worse than it really was. Or the true idiots will say that it all really happened as shown, but that the violence was justified because Joe Biden "stole the election." Unfortunately, many of these folks are eligible to vote.

We who are eligible to vote in the US just have to continue to outvote them, because American democracy has never been in such peril.

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