Editor’s letter

We are just past the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, and our Last Word this week gives a view of the riot from the vantage point of the Capitol Police, and it’s a terrifying read. For hours, rioters battered officers into senselessness, slamming poles into helmets and crushing hands. But to me the behavior of the crowd is in some ways less important than that of the demagogues and enablers who were hoping to harness the power of the mob. Many of the rioters were deeply confused and wildly misled by fringe media. On the other hand, the enablers, from President Trump on down, had a very clear goal in mind: subverting the results of the election by pressuring lawmakers not to certify the vote and flipping the choice to the House of Representatives. In a Hollywood version of this script, the assault on the Capitol would be the big public distraction while the real scheme was unfolding behind the scenes.

But maybe the better dramatic analogy comes from The Tragedy of Macbeth (see Film & Music, p.24). No one involved with

Jan. 6 will have a Lady Macbeth–like “out, damned spot” attack of conscience. But Macbeth is also about how isolated most would-be dictators end up. Opportunists gravitate to power, and this was on fine display at the conclusion of the Trump presidency. Jan. 6 brought out the careful plotters (the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Clark), the legislative fellow travelers (Sen. Josh Hawley), and the wild-eyed conspiracy mongers (the onetime general Mike Flynn). Courtiers and yes-men, however, don’t make steady allies. In Macbeth, the Thane of Ross dutifully spends much of the play carrying messages for Macbeth—until he sees that everyone close to Macbeth is in jeopardy, and switches sides. This is a dangerous moment in our national history, but there is still hope that the effort to undermine democracy ends as most failed conspiracies do: with the power-hungry opportunists turning on one another when the plot implodes.