Time to take a break from Education News and Ukraine to reflect on the most shameful day in U.S. history. We dare not forget, especially as the numbers of anti-democratic, neo-fascist, militant groups surface, and the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down reasonable restrictions on gun control.
In the last two years of Trump’s term in office, I followed him on Twitter. It was a usually horrifying experience to read whatever rant he posted at 6 a.m. But it was necessary, I thought, to be informed, to know what bizarre rages were percolating in his head, unfiltered by senior staff or caution. I recall the tweet he wrote when he said, “come to DC on January 6. Will be wild.” I knew something awful was brewing.
My television was on that day, and I watched his speech to his adoring throng and felt the sense of menace in the air. Like millions of others, I watched in horror as the mob attacked the thinly-guarded Capitol, broke through the lines, began attacking police officers, broke a window, stampeded the entrance, and climbed the walls of that august building.
I couldn’t help but think of the many times I had visited the Capitol to meet with an elected official or staff. Entry to the building is tightly guarded. Visitors wait patiently in line, waiting their turn to put their bags through a scanning machine, then to walk single file through a metal detector.
And here were hundreds or thousands of people streaming through the doors and the windows, or scaling the exterior walls, then running unimpeded through the halls.
I wrote that day, in a state of shock, about what I and millions of others had witnessed: “an attempted coup,” terrorism inspired by Trump.
The next day, as the dust settled, I wrote about what happened and about Trump’s failure to defend the Capitol:
As the rampage continued, Trump was silent. After a few hours of lawlessness, he released a video telling them to go home. He reiterated his lie that the election had been stolen. In the video, he also praised the crowd, who broke into the Capitol, trashed its elegant interior, ransacked the offices of members, terrorized fleeing elected, stole items from its rooms and posed for photographs in the legislative chambers. “We love you,” Trump said. “You’re very special.”
Yeah, very special thugs, looters, and terrorists.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that Trump’s loyal supporters would claim that the mob was created by Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters. Why would Trump have told them that he loved them? Why would he have refused to send in help if he thought the mob was Antifa and BLM? Why would he say they were “special”? If he thought they were BLM and Antifa, I expect we would have seen a massive show of force, not silence.
It certainly didn’t occur to me that the Republican National Committee, to its eternal shame, would call the attack on the Capitol “legitimate political discourse.” Or that Republican members who rushed to safety and cowered in safe spaces would reflect on the day as just another protest or actually defend the insurrectionists as “patriots.”
On January 10, 2021, I wrote “Donald Trump Is a Traitor” and thought about what might have happened if the insurrectionists had succeeded.
What happened on January 6 was a failed coup. Many of Trump’s MAGA base joined the mob innocently.
But the mob was led by trained militia men, equipped to take hostages, prepared with flex cuffs, which police use to handcuff suspects.
The mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
The mob knew the location of the secret Capitol offices of Democratic leaders.
They went looking for them.
Members of Congress exited the Chambers only a minute or two before the mob. If they had not escaped, there would have been mayhem.
The mob would have seized the leaders of Congress and VP Pence, handcuffed them, perhaps given them a show trial, perhaps executed them.
What then? Our democracy and our Constitution shredded. Would Trump declare himself President for Life?
What happened was terrifying. What might have happened would have been far, far worse.
Trump toadies are incorrigible. How to explain the members of Congress who emerged from their hiding place to vote to sustain Trump’s lies and to overturn a free and fair election? How to explain the perfidy of Senators Cruz and Hawley? How to explain the majority of House Republicans, who voted in support of a man who incited a coup against our democracy and our Constitution?
Now that I have watched the hearings of the January 6 Committee, I realize that the situation was even worse than I imagined on the day of the failed coup. I learned that Trump wanted to join the mob at the Capitol. Well, I’m sorry he didn’t, because there would now be no question about his culpability for inciting the insurrection, and he would be barred from ever seeking office again.
We learned that he watched the riot on television in his private dining room and did nothing to stop it for 187 minutes. He was hoping the mob would succeed and capture the Capitol. We know he did nothing to save the life of his Vice-President.
That led me to wonder: what if the mob had succeeded? There would have been no show trials. They would have executed Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. They would have murdered AOC and the Squad. They would have murdered any member of Congress who stood in the way of their hero Trump. In the chaos, the mob might have murdered some of their Republican allies. Accidents happen.
We now know that the mob was only 40 feet from Pence as he fled. We now know that Officer Eugene Goodman lured the mob away from the floor of the Senate long enough for it to be evacuated. Even Republicans were terrified. We saw video of mob sympathizer Josh Hawley sprinting away from the insurrectionists whom he incited earlier with a raised fist.
January 6, 2021, was the worst day in American history. It was the only time that the seat of our government was attacked by our fellow Americans. It was a rebellion against the Constitution and the rule of law. If ever there was a Day of infamy, a Day of Shame, a day in which our Constitution and our democracy hung in the balance, it was January 6.
We must never forget.
You are so right..as a longtime history teacher I was and am still shocked.. and more so that the GOP still refuses take action..so anxious to retain power that they will blatantly ignore their oaths of office…and what do they actually do with that power? Any substantive legislation? Sadly, people still support them.
It’s horrifying. An entire political party that cares only about raw power.
But not surprising !!!!!
Perhaps it is notable that the Confederate States never did anything like that in 1860. Somehow this is beyond what happened then, even though modern Right Wing groups like to wave the Virginia battle flag and tie themselves to the original lost cause, an invented history itself.
There’s a typo in the first sentence.
Fixed
Amazingly, a recent poll found that 61% of Republicans still cling to the big lie. We remain deeply divided with a significant number of those on the right that are deeply delusional.
This fact is astonishing, isn’t it?
Do you really know what they think. You know what they say they think . Perhaps they know that Trump and the big lie are a fraud and like the bedroom seen in Predator 2 . ” Don’t give a …”
This is a compelling piece. Will the Times, the Post, a Georgia or Missouri or Pennsylvania newspaper run it as a column? As a distinguished educator and historian who served in federal government, I would hope so.
One paper had a single picture of two people driving metal rods and bursting into a Capitol window. That single picture spoke volumes. This column has the same effect. Concise. Direct. No noise. The facts as viewed by millions.
Please, Diane, submit it everywhere!
Yes. That’s exactly the story and our current dilemma. We shouldn’t have been totally surprised, though. In the ’50’s and ’60’s, Adlai Stevenson, Theodore Adorno, Eric Fromm and others, warned us about the authoritarianism that smolders just below the democratic surface. And there is a direct link between Mr. Trump and Sen. McCarthy of the ’50’s–their lawyer, Roy Cohn. For years, many of us, including the organization F.A.I.R., fought to restore the Fairness Doctrine–removed by Reagan and ignored by most Congressional Democrats–to our media. We failed, and Fox, right-wing radio, and multiple sources on the internet are free to spew endless streams of deadly nonsense and hate–which millions of folks have no defense against. Plus, our public school system is threatened and weakened with corporate takeover, mindless testing, etc. The bottom line, folks, is that people only know what they are told (or shown). Our media now constantly tells and shows them an untrue and unbalanced picture of reality. It’s a wonder our voters have done as well as they have, given the ocean of misinformation and miseducation they endure. Strong measures need to be taken, and soon, if our democratic republic is to be saved.
Well said, Jack!
Bingo
However perhaps the real problem is not Right Wing Media spewing BS . Perhaps for a group of people who profess to be anti Trump,anti Fascist , pro Democracy, our friends in the Nations papers of records and at CNN and MSNBC are doing their best to re-elect Trump or his minion’s .
Ezra Klein the other day posts a solution for inflation other than the Fed raising interest rates. But in the first paragraph he reveals the truth that inflation is an expectations game. Employers and employees expecting inflation raise prices and ask for wage increases in anticipation of inflation.
But why would they have those expectations . I suppose the NY Times running stories about $6.99 gas last October when the National Average was $3.21 had nothing to do with it . Actually gas was far more affordable for the average consumer than it was in 2008 and
2011-14 . With incomes and millage up .While the actual price point was lower.
A non stop chorus of inflation from the supposed liberal media that ignored or glossed over the root causes. Empowering the the right to capitalize on “the terrible economy”. An economy where millions of workers were getting Jobs and low wage workers getting raises that out stripped inflation.
Of course unlike the 70s ,80s, 90s when worker wages drove 70% of price increases . Only 8% of todays inflation is driven by increased labor costs . A whopping 55% of the increase driven by corporate profits above and beyond costs. (EPI). Well corporate America got the message . The people expect inflation lets give it to them! Corporate profits at a 70 year high.
Followed by a cascade of stories of the suffering working class and its affect on the Mid Terms coming up in 2022. Little or no mention that low wage workers were actually seeing the majority of wage increases . Or that the child tax credit went to them . Keeping them ahead of pre Putin inflation.
Perhaps we should talk about the hysteria about crime with Red tough on crime States Actually having higher per capita murder rates .And in every category NYC safer than it was under Bloom Bucket when no one thought the City unsafe.
. Morning Joe can highlight the threat to Democracy daily . It is negated by the false right wing talking points he delivers in between.
Heck of a Job “liberal Media” . Mission accomplished !
Excellent post, Joel. Disgusting. This is why, TV-wise, I watch only CSPAN for national coverage [even PBS out the window a few yrs ago]. Have always had to double up any US TV coverage with BBC to supplement our pathetically teeny coverage of how the rest of the world works.
bethree5
The Times September or October story with picture attached of $6.99 gas, featured a Jersey station owner with a 2001 or 2003 Escalade and 1971 Muscle car, a Charger or Camaro ? And he was going broke putting gas in these Sherman tanks . Working 30 hours (?) a week extra just to pay for gas . . Of course that must be the typical American they managed to find.
PBS I forgot their absurd story. But they had one.
CNN found an average American family with 9 kids who goes through 12 gallons of milk a week .( They probably should have been sterilized after 6 .)
The story with no fact check by CNN producers claims they used to pay $1.99 a gallon and are now paying $2.79 . Well the internet had a field day. If for no other reason than Milk had been around or above $3 a gallon for almost all of 20 years .
https://digg.com/2021/cnn-12-gallons-of-milk
Spot on as always, Joel.
All of the above – only this time it reads like history in Germany. (Or the confederacy if they’d had mass communication and social media and corporate fear). Takeover the media, control all branches of government, torment the intellectuals and those who speak out, symbolic or not. They’ve put immigrants on buses and it’s old news. (I’m surprised they didn’t use trains).
We use and media use cute phrases like “The Big Lie” (this is not a movie “Big Sleep”, “Big Lebowski”…). It’s a contrived, manufactured, breach act of treason. “Big Lie” Another article, turn the page. They say “rigged” and get millions in donations.
Magnificent, Diane. Thank you.
“But it was necessary, I thought, to be informed, to know what bizarre rages were percolating in his head, unfiltered by senior staff or caution.”
Yours were higher motivations than mine, Diane. I admit that I followed Trump closely not only so I could be informed but from fascination with the sheer bizarre, surreal, tragicomedy of it all.
I don’t much like thinking, though I do, about what the Trump phenomenon means, what it tells us about the country I love–that 40 percent of its inhabitants are racists and morons, that the whole of one of the two major political parties here has been reconstituted in the Fascist mold. I knew, of course, as an abstract matter, about the experiments of Zimbardo and Milgrim and Asche, I knew how the highly cultured countries of Italy and Germany and Japan and Chile had descended into madness, and I knew from survivors telling me to my face that even as it was happening to them, they didn’t, couldn’t believe it. I also know, or think I know, of the rampant corruption in the U.S. that allows the wealthy in the U.S. to keep collections of political bobblehead dolls and for folks like Epstein and his buddy Trump and the literally hundreds of powerful Epstein clients to escape real prosecution. (Habermann asked Trump if, now, he regretted becoming President. His answer: “No. You have no idea how many rich people are now friends of mine.”) But nonetheless I was shocked by the phenomenon of Trump and continue to be shocked by those who do not see that we are on the brink, that we are Germany in 1932, even as the Trumptilian Extreme Court is poised to sweep away other whole swathes of democratic protections in its new term.
I am now convinced that we have some terrible times ahead. I believe that democracy will eventually prevail here but that there will be a terrible, dark time between then and now.
cx: Asch, not Asche
“Trump toadies are incorrigible. How to explain the members of Congress who emerged from their hiding place to vote to sustain Trump’s lies and to overturn a free and fair election? How to explain the perfidy of Senators Cruz and Hawley? How to explain the majority of House Republicans, who voted in support of a man who incited a coup against our democracy and our Constitution?”
Diane doesn’t miss a thing. This was, to me, the most appalling, the most troubling thing. It isn’t just Trump and some crazies around him and these hillbilly fringe citizens’ militias. IT’S AN ENTIRE POLITICAL PARTY IN THE US.
147 Senators and Congressmen voted to sustain the Fake Electors scheme and overturn the democratic election AFTER the attack on the Capitol.
That’s how bad this is. That’s how deep the rot is at the heart of democracy here.
Hey! Now! Hillbilly? I resemble that.
Only the reality of Trump locked behind bars will begin to restore sanity and order to our nation.
Emphatically agreed
For 20% of Americans, putting Trump in prison without a solid admission of guilt on his part would be proof that there is a communist conspiracy that rules the country.
Not putting him in prison would convince another 20% of the bankruptcy of the morality of the nation.
The 60% that would not react either way already feels a profound cynicism about the system. This cynicism is too nuanced to be discovered in polling, but it is real.
I know all of this because of my clairvoyant nature. Of course.
I’d say that no matter how unlikely, the likelihood that the US is being ruled by a communist conspiracy is far greater than the likelihood that Trump will ever admit guilt (solid or squishy) on any matter whatsoever.
The probability of the latter is about as close to zero as one can come in a universe governed by the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.
The only thing necessary for the
triumph of evil, is for the “good”
to do nothing, that stops it.
Is using the same strategy over and
over again, and expecting a different
result, logic?
If not now, when, in these
tumultuous times, will it
be time to consider the
strategic value, of actions
taken by the “good”, to
determine what brings
meaningful change, and
what doesn’t.
Is it what we don’t know about
rump that causes trouble?
Are we an essay, or definition, or
book, or article, or proclamation,
or description, away from redemption?
Is salvation held at bay because
not enough word-cannons have been fired,
or not enough demonization?
Diane, as other readers have suggested, please send this excellent and cogent piece to as many media outlets of all kinds as you can.
agreed
I think that January 6, 2021, was the 2nd most shameful day in American history.
The most shameful day was when Traitor Trump lied when he took the oath to defend the US Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic, officially becoming the most corrupt president, and probably the worst, in US History.
Correction: Trump was the worst president in US history because he betrayed his oath of office
Putin placed his dog in the White House
Shameful and shocking and downright crazy. Nothing even approaching this should ever have happened.
The conservative lone is that Putin was too scared to invade as long as Trump was in the White House. Astounding when you think about it. Lunacy.
IKR? Putin was so afraid of Cadet Bone Spurs.
Hey Ravitch the Capitol police chief asked for help several times in the days leading up to January 6th but because BOTH house & senate sergeants-at-arms wouldn’t approve the request the Pentagon stonewalled him and wouldn’t send any guardsmen…everyone everywhere was concerned about the “optics” of having troops at the Capitol during the “peaceful transition of power”. Even that lovely DC mayor Bowser chimed in saying she wanted to be consulted and notified if guardsmen were going to be deployed…she actually said the DC police could handle any issues arising out of the demonstration…the only thing she and her keystone kops can actually do is paint “Black Lives Matter” graffiti on the street near the White House. DEMS/LIBS like Pelosi WANTED this thing to go bad and you know it.
So Trump called his goons to DC because Pelosi wanted them there? And Trump did not release the National Guard immediately because Pelosi didn’t want help?
Were you in DC at the Capitol on January 6, Mike Pulcifer?
No, it’s not the most shameful day in American history. No doubt it’s a bad one but many others surpass it in infamy.