We can’t wipe away the memory of Jan. 6
Sometimes “both sides” is not acceptable, like President Donald Trump proclaiming good people on both sides in Charlottesville, Va. White nationalists and neo-Nazis who chant “Jews will not replace us” have no acceptable side.
Neither is there an acceptable side for an attempted overthrow of the United States government, for those who attempted a coup on
Jan. 6, 2021.
This week’s Capitol Hill chaos, on the second anniversary of that Jan. 6 insurrection, bodes badly for two years with a Republican House majority. The Jan. 6 assault upon democracy continues to impact our institutions, and the Republican party has too long enabled this destructive trajectory.
Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic Caucus and House Minority Leader, speaking in a news conference after the first day of House failure to elect a speaker, called that day’s failure a sad day for the institution of the House of Representatives, a sad day for democracy, and a sad day for the American people.
Three days. Eleven votes. Still no speaker of the House by Thursday night. Not since before the Civil War have there been this many failed votes for a speaker. And it’s been a century since the speaker’s election took more than one vote.
Thursday night the House adjourned until noon the next day, Jan. 6, a day Republicans refuse to acknowledge for its profound threat to our democracy.
The Republican Party has aided and abetted Trump’s refusal to accept the peaceful transfer of power that’s essential to any democracy. The Republican Party has refused to recognize the horrific danger of Trump’s attempted coup in 2021, a seditious conspiracy that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history. Indeed, the Republican Party has normalized the outrage that is Trump ever since he descended the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 and declared Mexicans to be murderers and rapists.
The Republican Party wants us to believe that nothing outside of the ordinary happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The events of that day felt like a wake-up call for me — and many others — that political violence is real,” former Washington, D.C., police officer Michael Fanone said at a recent news conference. “The worst part is that our elected leaders allow this to happen. And yet, this week people who encouraged and even attended the insurrection are now taking their places as leaders in the new House majority.”
Fanone suffered serious injuries in the struggle against Donald Trump’s insurrectionists, an insurrection that ultimately led to five deaths.
This week the Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol became available to the public, a thoroughly researched and invaluable historical record of this terrible event.
“In large measure, this report is the story of how Trump, humiliated by his loss to Joe Biden, conspired to obstruct Congress, defraud the country he was pledged to serve, and incite an insurrection to keep himself in power,” New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote in the preface to the Celadon Books publication of the report in collaboration with The New Yorker.
This week’s chaos at the Capitol is powered by some 20 to 21 Republican members of Congress who adhere to Trump’s “stolen election” lie and oppose Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker of the House not necessarily because he’s a “hollow man,” as some commentators describe him. And not because his actions reveal him as clearly pernicious, devoid of any convictions or principles. This intra-Republican struggle has more to do with an anti-establishment, anti-government attitude espoused by the so-called MAGA Freedom Caucus, which does not stand for freedom and gives Hungary’s Viktor Orban and fascism priority over democratic values.
We can’t cede control of our government to the MAGA Freedom Caucus that controls House Republicans. And we can’t wipe away the memory of Jan. 6. Capitol tours make no mention of Jan. 6 not to offend either side. We must acknowledge that there are no two sides here.
President Joe Biden this year remembers Jan. 6 with a White House ceremony for 12 police officers who fought off the mob and election workers who resisted pressure from Republican officials to stop counting the votes.
To protect our democracy, we must make Jan. 6 forever such a day of remembrance.