A dark day in U.S. history

Three years ago Saturday, the uniquely American conceit that “it can’t happen here” was debunked once and for all: A sitting American president refused to accept his legitimate electoral defeat, using toxic lies and incitement to violence in an attempt to overturn a valid election so he could remain in power.

Nothing like the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had ever happened before. In the more than two centuries of the nation’s existence, no foreign assailant had ever managed to so grievously undermine America’s confidence in its democratic institutions as its own president, his congressional enablers and his thousands of violent followers did on that terrible day.

And yet, the ensuing 36 months have in some ways confronted the nation with even more disturbing realities about itself in the current political era — beginning with the surreal fact that Donald Trump remains a politically viable presidential candidate going into the 2024 election cycle, despite his unprecedented (and continuing) betrayal of our constitutional democracy.

So brazen has been the revisionism of Trump’s supporters regarding Jan. 6 that it’s important to review even the most basic, uncontroverted facts.

Trump had spent the preceding months softening the ground with his baseless but persistent big lie that the November 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him. As dozens of court rulings (including by Trump-appointing judges) ultimately confirmed, there was never a molecule of evidence to suggest significant election fraud.

Trump’s gaseous lies might have merely dissipated into the atmosphere had it not been for Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first senator to object to ballot results. That damnable, self-serving stunt is what made it necessary for Congress that day to debate the undebatable legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory — thus providing a time-andplace target for the MAGA madness of Jan. 6.

The rest is well-trodden history: Trump’s exhortation to his followers near the Capitol that day to “fight like hell.” His public vilification of Mike Pence for refusing to back his lies, literally endangering his own vice president’s life as the mob advanced. His refusal, for hours, to tamp down the violence as the Capitol was overrun, police were assaulted and several people died. His eventual, reluctant public statement telling the mob to go home — while praising their supposed patriotism.

No, the mob wasn’t engaged in “tourism,” as some Trump allies in Congress have pathetically suggested. No, the melee wasn’t instigated by the FBI, as an astonishing 3 in 10 Republican voters believe today, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.

This was an attempt by thousands of Americans, acting at the behest of a sitting president, to thwart the certification of election results because they didn’t like the outcome. Period. The fact that this is anything other than permanently disqualifying to any political future for Trump is the ultimate measure of America’s blindly, stubbornly tribal politics today.

Trump’s culpability is clear, but he isn’t alone. Scores of Republicans in both houses of Congress — most of whom are still there — joined Hawley in his attempt to disenfranchise millions of Americans by blocking certification of valid election results. Later, most House Republicans refused to join the successful impeachment vote against Trump, then the Republican-controlled Senate refused to convict.

The story of Jan. 6 isn’t over. Trump’s anti-democracy rhetoric has only grown more corrosive since Jan. 6, including calls to jail his enemies, use the military against protesters and suspend the Constitution.

If Jan. 6 should have taught America anything, it’s that it almost did happen here — and that it still could.

The fact that, three years later, large swaths of the electorate either don’t understand that or are actively cheering the possibility should qualify, far and away, as the most urgent issue before the voters in the coming elections.