Tag: january 6 anniversary
Why Have We Forgotten How To Commemorate An Attack On Our Nation?

Why Have We Forgotten How To Commemorate An Attack On Our Nation?

It comes as a sad if not tragic fact that while we as a nation know how to commemorate an attack on our country by foreign terrorists, we have failed when it comes to an attack on us by domestic terrorists. It’s all a bit like a school shooting, isn’t it? We can get an accurate body count, we can learn who is responsible from police, prosecutors, and the courts, but we cannot come to agreement on what caused the terrible incident.

Within days of September 11, 2001, we knew the names of the 19 terrorists who crashed the jetliners into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. At the same time we learned that a single man was behind the attacks: Osama bin Laden. A strategy for how to deal with the attack by foreign terrorists on our soil was agreed upon quickly: we would dispatch soldiers to Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible and punish them, beginning with the terrorists’ leader, bin Laden.

We all know that bin Laden was not found and killed until ten years after the attack and that retaliation against others responsible for 9/11, namely the Taliban, went wildly astray over the next two decades. We know that trillions in treasure and thousands of American lives were wasted over the next 20 years, and we know that all we accomplished in the end was a return to the status quo in Afghanistan and further disarray in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attack in the first place.

But as the saying goes, at least we have not suffered another terrorist attack of the magnitude of 9/11 on our country since then.

Now here we are on the third anniversary of the assault on our democracy that took place on January 6, 2021, and we not managed to make sure that another such attack will not take place in this country, nor have we punished the man responsible for the attack on our democracy in the first place. After a very brief respite during which some leaders in the Republican Party put the blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection where it belongs, on the man who instigated it, the Republican Party took a sharp turn in response to yelps and complaints from its base voters and began a campaign to hide its own Terrorist in Chief, Donald Trump, behind a smokescreen of lies, deflection, and an attack on institutions in our democratically elected government such as the Department of Justice, the FBI, the judiciary, and the current occupant of the White House, President Joe Biden.

The assault on January 6, 2021, was not just a violent attack on the Capitol building that ended up with five dead and 140 police officers injured, some seriously enough to end their careers in law enforcement. It was an attempt to subvert our Constitution and system of government by preventing a peaceful transition of power from one president to another. The attack by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001 was a threat to our way of life, destroying not only lives but businesses, the freedom to travel without fear, and with the partial destruction of the Pentagon, a threat to our national security.

But the attack on January 6, 2021 was worse, because it deepened the fracture of our country into warring political camps and furthered dysfunction in our governmental structures so that shutting down the government by one political party over its inability to pass its political agenda has now become a normal way of doing political business in the Congress.

We are weaker as a nation today than we were after 9/11 in ways that are immeasurable. The angry refusal of Republicans to pass aid to our ally Ukraine in its fight for its existence as a sovereign state against the outlaw regime of Vladimir Putin has weakened the NATO alliance and strengthened enemies of freedom around the globe, from Iranian radicals to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria to Hamas in Gaza to ISIS to the Houtis in Yemen to numberless factions fighting governments in Africa and amongst themselves in dozens of countries around the world, including Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, and now even political violence in Bangladesh.

The question is no longer if or when peace will descend into political conflict and violence but how many lives will be lost when it happens. The United States, once a beacon of freedom and stability for other nations to admire and emulate, has descended along with other nations into political conflict, sectarian violence, and threats against the lives of public officials like governors, members of Congress, judges, election officials and even public health officers down at county level. All of this has become what can be called a new political normality, along with mass shootings at schools and lies about public health emergencies like the COVID pandemic and the big lie that Donald Trump won the last presidential election.

We are unable as a nation to commemorate what we lost on January 6, 2021 because one man, Donald Trump, and his political party stand in the way of admitting what we saw with our own eyes: a mob instigated and given aid and comfort by Trump assaulted one of the pillars of our democracy, the Capitol building, and tried to overrun the Senate and the House of Representatives as they carried out the Constitutional duty of certifying electoral ballots and announcing the winner of the 2020 election.

There have been multiple recent stories about how attempts to rewrite what happened on January 6 by manipulating the visual record of Capitol surveillance cameras has “backfired” on the likes of Kevin McCarthy, Tucker Carlson, and now Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. It turns out that images of rioters breaking into the Capitol, attacking police officers, and in one disgraceful instance, carrying a Confederate battle flag through the halls of the Capitol are not easily explained away.

But even that fact has not dented the campaign by Trump and Republicans to deny what we saw with our own eyes. Now the Washington Post and New York Times both, in covering dueling speeches by President Biden on January 5 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and Donald Trump at a rally the same day in Sioux City, Iowa, are saying that the two campaigns are arguing not just about politics but reality itself.

What was real on September 11, 2001 was that the World Trade Center fell to the ground and the Pentagon was severely damaged and that thousands of Americans lost their lives to a terrorist attack by al Qaeda. What was real on January 6, 2021 was that the Capitol was violently attacked by domestic terrorists and our government came close to falling to a would be dictator.

All of us saw both attacks with our own eyes. That we cannot agree on what we saw on January 6, and instead a significant minority believes what they are told by a congenital liar and cheat, is something we will be living with throughout this election year. No matter how this election turns out, we and the rest of the world, will have to live with our failure for years if not decades to come.

It has taken us at least a century to begin to properly commemorate the disaster of the Civil War by taking down Confederate statues and renaming military installations for patriots instead of traitors. Here’s hoping it won’t take just as long for us to commemorate 1/6 with the unity and propriety that we commemorate 9/11.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.

'There Could Be Peril': Graham Advised Trump To Ditch January 6 Press Event

'There Could Be Peril': Graham Advised Trump To Ditch January 6 Press Event

Former President Donald Trump planned to hold a press conference in Florida, his adopted state, on the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. But Trump, according to Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin, canceled that event and will instead “be discussing his grievances” at a rally in Arizona in mid-January.

“Trump continues to falsely insist the election was ‘stolen’ and that the ‘real’ insurrection was on Election Day, November 3, 2020, the day Democrat Joe Biden won the votes that led to his 306-232 Electoral College victory,” Colvin notes. “Federal and state election officials, Trump’s own attorney general and numerous judges — including some he appointed — have all said repeatedly that the election was fair and that there is no credible evidence of serious fraud.”

In an official statement released on Tuesday night, January 4, Trump wrote, “In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona.”

One Republican ally who urged Trump to cancel the press conference he had in mind for January 6 was Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The conservative senator told Axios he advised Trump that “there could be peril in doing a news conference” and that it was “best to focus on election reform instead.”

Axios’ Jonathan Swan notes that Fox News’ Laura Ingraham also advised Trump against going forward with a January 6 event.

Swan reports, “House and Senate leaders had no involvement in planning Trump's event — which they viewed as a political headache. They were quietly relieved when they saw his statement Tuesday evening announcing he was canceling the press conference. The withdrawal leaves Steve Bannon and Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as perhaps the only high-profile Trump allies willing to go on the offense through media appearances Thursday.”

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Karl Rove Has A Blistering Message For Defenders Of January 6

Karl Rove Has A Blistering Message For Defenders Of January 6

When the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building was approaching, many Republicans were downplaying the insurrectionist violence that occurred — and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has even defended the rioters. But veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove forcefully condemned the attack in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published the day before the anniversary. And Election Law Blog’s Ned Foley is applauding Rove’s willingness to ask Republicans how they would have responded if the rioters had been Democrats rather than supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“Karl Rove’s column yesterday is noteworthy for its strong condemnation of his fellow Republicans who refuse to condemn the attempt at election subversion perpetrated last January 6,” Foley observes his Election Law Blog post. “It is especially valuable for its invocation of a device that is essential when any of us, given our own partisan feelings and affiliations, strive to determine what fair electoral competition requires from an impartial perspective: what if the shoe were on the other foot, so to speak, and roles were reversed?”

Some far-right conspiracy theorists have been claiming that the militant leftist movement Antifa was behind the January 6, 2021 insurrection — something there is absolutely zero evidence of. It was a MAGA crowd, not leftists, who attacked the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of preventing Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump.

Rove didn’t sugarcoat the truth in his Journal op-ed, and he had enough intellectual honesty to say that Republicans wouldn’t be giving Democrats a pass if they had attacked the Capitol.

“On this anniversary, here’s a simple thought experiment: What if the other side had done it?” Rove wrote. “What if, in early January 2017, Democrats similarly attired and armed had stormed the Capitol and attempted to keep Congress from receiving the Electoral College results for the 2016 presidential election? What if Democrats claimed that Donald Trump’s razor-thin victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin resulted from extensive voter fraud and should be rejected, despite having failed to establish in a single court that extensive fraud had actually occurred?”

Rove continued, “What if some of these Democrats breached the Capitol defenses and threatened violence against the Republican speaker, Paul Ryan, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? What if they insisted that in his role as Senate president, then-Vice President Joe Biden had sole authority to seat Hillary Clinton’s electors from any contested states and thereby hand her the presidency? If this happened, would some of my fellow Republicans have accepted it as merely a protest? Would they have called patriots those charged with violent acts against our country, its laws and Constitution? Would they have accepted such extralegal means to change the outcome of a presidential election? No, they would not. I’m certain of that.”

According to Rove, “If Democrats had done what some Trump supporters did on that violent January 6, Republicans would have criticized them mercilessly and been right to do so.”

“Kudos to Rove for saying this,” Foley emphasizes. “In the days, weeks, and months ahead, every incumbent Republican should be measured by whether they can meet Rove’s test.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Did The January 6 Coup Fail?

Did The January 6 Coup Fail?

January 6 should have been the point of no return, the pivot point at which even the most blinkered sugar-coaters of Trumpism recoiled in disgust from what they had wrought.

For everyone who had convinced themselves that, whatever Trump's flaws, the true threat to the American way of life lay on the left and only on the left, January 6 was a blaring klaxon. Yes, he was a buffoon and incompetent and unfamiliar with the levers of power — and yet this clown nearly brought a 244-year-old democracy to its knees.

The most threatening aspect of January 6 was not the ferocious attack on the Capitol but the response of Republican officeholders thereafter. Even after the unleashing of medieval mob violence, 147 Republican members of Congress voted not to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the presidency. The transformation of the GOP from a political party into an authoritarian personality cult became official that day.

In the year since, most Republicans (with some extremely honorable exceptions) have descended further into cultishness. They blocked the creation of an independent January 6 commission, attempted to pack the congressional January 6 committee with Trump Dobermans like Rep. Jim Jordan, and engaged in flagrant gaslighting about the events of that day. Now, with the arrival of the first anniversary of the most shameful day in recent history, Republicans and right-wing opinion leaders returned to their comfort zone: Blame the media.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who showed uncharacteristic independence that day, has retreated to media bashing. "I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration's failed agenda by focusing on one day in January," he told Fox News.

Radio host Erick Erickson tweeted that "there is a genuine obsession in the press about it. It was a bad day, but it doesn't outweigh crime, inflation, COVID, school closures, etc. for voters." Erickson was at pains to emphasize that he isn't now minimizing what happened at the Capitol, but merely responding to a "press corps obsessed with it as the worst thing ever."

This is not to say that there's no such thing as press overreaction or hysteria, but the right has been engaging in evasion for years with the "but the media" trope. In the wake of January 6, it looks not just dishonest but absurd. January 6 is not an "issue" like crime or COVID-19 or inflation. It's the heart of our system. Without bipartisan allegiance to the verdict of voters and the willingness to cede power to those you oppose, no other "issues" can ever be addressed.

Encounter Books editor Roger Kimball mocked the gravity of January 6. "Was it an effort to overthrow the government? Hardly." The trouble, of course, is the media: "To listen to the establishment media and our political masters, the January 6 protest was a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation."

In fact, Kimball claims, the media narrative amounts to a "January 6 insurrection hoax" to pair with the "Russia collusion hoax."

Unlike some of those cited above, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is not an apologist for Trumpism. He doesn't blame the media, but he doubts that Trump has the wherewithal to subvert our system. Yes, Trump did try to steal the election, Douthat writes, but the courts and state legislatures failed to do his bidding.

That's a comforting thought, but it fails to grapple with two things. One is the GOP's systematic purging of officials who did the right thing in the 2020 election. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been removed from the board overseeing election certification and is being primaried, as is Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Across the country, Republican officials who stood in the breach when it counted and did the right thing are being hounded from office. Members who voted to impeach are resigning or close to resigning.

It's true that Trump didn't quite know where the pressure points were last time, but he's learning. He has supported secretary of state candidates who deny the validity of the 2020 result in four swing states. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled legislatures in a number of states have passed laws withdrawing power over election certification from local election administrators and handing it to legislatures.

But the most profound reason to fear a repeat of something like January 6 is that Trump has corrupted the minds of a substantial percentage of Republican party members.

The polls consistently show that about two-thirds of Republicans believe the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Nearly a third believe that "Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." Among rank-and-file Republicans, January 6 is not even viewed as regrettable. One poll found that 52% identified those who entered the Capitol as "protecting democracy."Institutions are not self-sustaining. They are composed of people, and if people have lost faith in them or have given themselves permission to break the rules, they will crumble.

A people deluded and propagandized cannot be trusted to uphold the pillars of the democratic process. Trump failed at his improvised coup, but he succeeded in warping enough of the electorate to make another attempt — and even success — all too possible.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her most recent book is Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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