We remember the violent insurrection of January 6

This past Saturday, we marked the third anniversary of January 6, 2021.

On that day, thousands of violent radicals from all over the country stormed our nation’s Capitol.

Some of them were members of fascist groups like the Proud Boys. The vast majority were everyday people who had been lied to, over and over again.

Those lies, and the coup attempt itself, were part of a broader plot to deny the election, deny Joe Biden’s victory, and secure Trump permanently in the White House.

 

Slide showing Trump tweets leading up to January 6, 2021 from the seventh January 6 Committee hearing.

That plot included the “Stop the Steal” messaging from Roger Stone, the Proud Boys, and others; it included the effort to present fraudulent slates of electors to sow confusion in Congress and doubt among the electorate; it included more than sixty bogus court cases; it included months of conspiracy-theories and denials going back even before Election Day, including the defamation and intimidation of elections workers such as Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

The MAGA mob had been told that their man had won. They’d been told that there was election malfeasance and they needed to get to Washington DC on January 6 to stop Congress from certifying the electoral college votes. On the Ellipse, Trump told them “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol” to pressure Congress and Vice President Pence into denying the result of the election. He told them that Pence could do this, if he had the “courage” to do so.

Prof. John Eastman (left) and Rudolph Giuliani speaking at Trump’s rally on the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, as seen in the third Committee hearing.

Trump speaking at his rally on the Ellipse.

 

Most of the people in that mob truly believed everything they’d been told. It was a horrific demonstration of the power of lies, lies told in pursuit of power.

The mob marched up to the Capitol. The police tried to hold them back but ultimately failed, and the National Guard was finally mobilized too late. The mob broke through police barricades and into the Capitol building, trashed the place, and posed proudly in Members’ offices, after heroic Capitol police had helped those Members seek shelter in their safe rooms.

January 6 rioter Richard Barnett puts his foot up on then-Speaker Pelosi’s desk during the insurrection. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP, from the NBC News article about Barnett’s prison sentence.

While we were watching the insurrection on national television, Trump was watching it in his dining room in the White House.

Rendering shown by the January 6 Committee of the White House in the eighth Committee hearing, showing the dining room, with the television playing news coverage of the insurrection.

Footage shown in the sixth January 6 Committee hearing. The subtitle is from police radio transmissions in which Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers informed each other of the armed threats present.

The liars, of course, have kept lying. Republicans have tried to maintain The Big Lie and have pretended the insurrection was just a peaceful protest—never mind the broken windows, the trashed offices, the clashes with police, and the weapons. Trump himself knew the insurrectionists were armed, which is why he had told the Secret Service to “take the effing mags [metal detectors] away” to let his supporters attend his speech. “They’re not here to hurt me,” he said.

January 6, 2021, a day full of violence, ended with the peaceful transfer of power. Americans had turned out to elect Joseph Robinette Biden the 46th President of the United States, and Congress (well, most of them) did their duty and certified that fact.

We came so close to a fascist takeover. We were a hair’s breadth away from the plot succeeding. But thanks to a few people of strong principle, democracy survived.

It is now 2024. Three years have passed since January 6, 2021. Long enough that the events of that day have begun receding into memory, and yet short enough that both Trump and President Biden are back on the ballot, headed for a rematch.

Thank goodness we chose Biden-Harris and voted in a large enough House and Senate majority to make a good start on repairing the last administration’s damage.

As ever, democracy is on the ballot. Prosperity is on the ballot. The future of our country is on the ballot. Freedom is on the ballot.

We cannot change what people who have been lied to—and are still being lied to—will do. We cannot change how they will vote.

And we know very well what Trump will do if he gets a second chance. He’s told us. He’s shown us.

Our task is to motivate our side to vote, in big enough numbers to win again:

  • affirm the principles of freedom and democracy that our country must strengthen,

  • show that the MAGA Republicans, with their do-nothing obstructionism at best and virulent fascism at worst, are still a threat,

  • and get the word out about the work President Biden and Congressional Democrats have been do​​ing in the past three years to lead our country in the right direction.

People will point to things President Biden has not done, and we can agree with much of it, as do many Democrats in both the House and the Senate. There is a lot of work yet to do.

But we’ve also got a lot of great work to build upon. The last Congress passed some remarkable bills that are helping everyday Americans. Their legislation has created millions of jobs, with the lowest sustained unemployment rate since the 1960s. We are investing billions in sustainable energy projects in all 50 states. Wages are (finally) beginning to rise, thanks in part to a surge in labor organizing supported by President Biden’s administration. Our economy is stronger than China’s for the first time in decades, and we have brought some manufacturing back to the USA through the CHIPS & Science Act. There are only a few of the hundreds of achievements of Biden’s first term.

We need to build upon the great progress we’ve made since 2021, by reelecting President Biden and Vice President Harris and giving them a stronger Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to put the legislative winds in their sails.

There’s a saying that voting isn’t like choosing a lifelong romantic partner; it’s more like taking a bus. You pick which direction you want to go in, and get on the bus that’s heading that way—and not the bus that’s heading away from there.

Which direction will America go in next year? Only we, the People, decide.

Let this and every anniversary of January 6 be a day in which we recommit ourselves to our democracy, our freedoms, and our country, and to the defense of all three.

References

Deep DivePeter HJan 6th