As we roll past the first anniversary of January 6, it’s crucial that we recognize the infamy of that day while also understanding that the attack on the Capitol was only one element of a larger coup that preceded and followed that act of violence. We know so much more now than we did a year ago — specifically about efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to discredit and throw out the election results in key swing states.
But equally important for anyone who is trying to make sense of American politics and believes in a democratic future, we all need to come to grips with the reality that the insurrection exemplified by January 6 never actually ended. The majority of Republican Party officials have either embraced Trump’s Big Lie that Democrats stole the election, or, even more importantly, support various legislative and rhetorical subversions of the American electoral system aimed at ensuring that Republicans will prevail in future elections. And so across the land, GOP legislatures are not only making it harder for Democratic-leaning citizens to vote and to have those votes count, but making it possible for Republican legislatures to throw out election results and replace them with their own choices, particularly in presidential elections. Meanwhile, thousands of rank-and-file Trump loyalists are flocking to join local election boards, with the goal of putting a thumb on the scales, or worse, in the running and counting of future elections; in states like Georgia, this effort to undermine election mechanics is abetted by state laws disempowering local election boards in favor of state intervention. Alongside this, right-wing extremists engage in a spectrum of violence and intimidation, from disruptions of school board meetings to the lurking menace of political gangs like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
That much of the current GOP effort is non-violent and conducted through legal machinations makes it no less an attack on American democracy than the January 6 Capitol assault. We are all living through a slow-motion insurrection against the republic, in which a political party representing a minority of Americans seeks permanent power over the majority.
We also need to recognize the larger struggle going on, the substantive reasons why the Republican Party has declared war on American democracy, as opposed to this simply being a power grab for its own sake, a case of hardball politics gone too far. The GOP’s efforts are ultimately aimed at promoting the interests of white, Christian Americans against the diverse, expanding majority — an effort to turn back the clock to a time when white supremacy was the basis for American society. Simultaneously, the GOP effort at seizing unassailable power also seek to raise powerful corporate interests beyond the scope of government regulation and subordination to the public interest. The goal, then, is not simply to destroy democracy for the sheer thrill of power, but to institute a vision of American society and American capitalism deeply at odds with the interests of most Americans. This reactionary movement also encompasses the right-wing Supreme Court and its subversion of the rule of law, civil rights, and the capacity of the federal government to work in the public interest; striking examples of this include its reversal of abortion rights, undermining the federal government’s ability to regulate the economy, and today’s striking down of the Biden administration vaccine mandate for large American businesses to combat the covid pandemic.
In this sense, then, we face not just a political insurrection, but a reactionary movement that understands that the only way to achieve its goals is to destroy both the American political system’s ability to serve the majority as well as any semblance of an egalitarian, tolerant society. The question the rest of us now have to answer, from the Democratic leadership through ordinary Americans, is what we’re going to do about it.
At the mass level, it seems to me that the best defense of democracy is more democracy, from citizens getting engaged in local politics, to talking with friends about their concerns, to of course voting for candidates who defend American government. But this last obvious point brings us back to the nature of the Republican insurrection, which crucially aims to ensure that as few Democratic voters as possible are actually able to vote or have those votes count. And this means that Democratic elected officials need to do their part, now, to defend America. God knows that President Biden and the congressional Democrats have their hands full with razor-thin majorities and the Build Back Better bill hanging by a thread, and with the filibuster currently blocking any possibility of democracy-protecting legislation — I don’t want to underestimate the very real challenges of this situation.
But at a bare minimum, what Democrats can do is actually talk, and behave, as if this country actually does face an insurrection. A year into Biden’s presidency and the current Congress, it should be crystal clear that appeals to bipartisanship are folly. Since January 6, the GOP has only continued to radicalize, not moderate, and at this point behaving as if major legislation is possible with the help of Republicans only serves to mislead the American people as to the true nature of this authoritarian party. The country finds itself in a horrifying and dangerous place, and there is nothing to be gained by pretending that this reality does not exist, as if pretending might magically make it not so.
President Biden’s January 6 speech was a good start, but as others have noted, whether it marks a real change in his rhetorical and political stance toward the GOP will depend on whether he maintains a position consistent with his remarks moving forward. At some point, if he is indeed stymied by senators Manchin and Sinema in the push to pass democracy legislation, then maintaining a posture of pointed antagonism to the GOP will only become more important. At that point, in the absence of legislation, alerting and mobilizing the American people to the dangers of one-party Republican rule will be the Democratic Party’s primary way to defend democracy leading up to the 2022 election. Democrats must make the case that January 6 was but the most violent expression of an ongoing mass insurrection against American democracy.
That said, retaining a great deal of focus on January is necessary, as it constitutes not only a tremendous crime in and of itself, but also represents an effective way to help make the case that we are experiencing a general attack on our political order. Even GOP politicians who did not participate in the planning and actions of that day have retroactively made themselves party to it, either by parroting the Big Lie or by pressing for election restrictions the Big Lie is meant to justify. Stressing the continuity between the intentions of the violence of January 6, and the intentions of legislation meant to subvert democracy, can be a righteous and effective cudgel in defense of democracy. In an essay on the January 6 attack, historian Joanne Freeman argues that drawing a bright line against violence in American politics is essential:
All these months after the attack, the seemingly bare-minimum response has not happened: There has been no full-throated group statement from the congressional bully pulpit stating that the attack was out of bounds, no strong, clear line in the sand naming the events of Jan. 6 an unforgivable assault on the democratic processes and principles of our government that must never happen again. This astounding omission could prove fatal.
[. . .] Although accountability won’t single-handedly end our current crisis, its absence virtually guarantees more of the same. With no clear line in the sand, the attack on democracy will continue, unchecked and empowered, with the worst yet to come.
Even if the January 6 attack had not been part of a larger Republican insurrection, it would still require a forceful, unambiguous response. It is time for the Democrats to realize that the Republican Party will never be part of a true accounting and reckoning with that day, and that January 6 must form a key piece of their broader indictment of an authoritarian GOP in the years ahead. Televise the January 6 hearings; distribute daily talking points to Democrats so that they are singing from the same choir book; rinse and repeat through the November midterms, and beyond. They can at least count on the GOP to keep feeding the indictment, such as with the mass refusal to attend the congressional commemoration of January 6 (save Lynne Cheney), constant assertions by many that January 6 was no big deal, and crazy talk from Donald Trump that the actual insurrection occurred on Election Day 2020. Democrats must embrace the necessity of irreconcilable conflict with the GOP, and win this fight both in the court of public opinion and at the polls.